Job Creation and National Service to pay for Education

The scale and pace of wildfires in California will expand as climate conditions change, threatening the West coast and beyond.

There are other threats to forest health, like the slow, imperceptible spread of invasive plants that could change ecosystems forever.

Forest conditions can be managed to reduce wildfire risks. And invasive plants can be controlled if we act collectively before they become entrenched. The sooner we do so, the cheaper it will be. Otherwise, neglect of biodiversity will diminish forest products, fisheries, agriculture, and tourism industries. If we lose “eco-services” that healthy soils and forests provide (clean water, air, carbon sequestration and bio-diverse checks and balances that keep diseases and pests tolerable), then our human and economic health is at risk, impoverishing us all.

English ivy is not a sensational forest fire, but its spread is relentless, potentially permanent. Ivy covered 50% of urban forests in 100 years, and seeds are now leapfrogging by bird into regional forests. “Ivy deserts” are useless pollinator habitat – critical to our food supply. We cannot let ivy become regionally established.  It’s notorious rat habitat, as all monocultures are vectors for pests and disease.

Other invasive plants, like streamside knotweed, severely degrade salmon habitat. English holly is spreading at near-exponential rates, doubling every six years and having “the potential to become a dominant species in both number of individuals and area covered within a few decades… (transforming) the region’s native forests on a large scale.” (Dr. David Stokes, UW Bothell).

Invasive plants are a visible illustration of an epidemic, where infected properties infect other properties, and vise versa, at increasing rates. We have no choice but to nip infestations in the bud.

Paradoxically, the invasive epidemic and COVID-type epidemics dovetail: People out of work from pandemics need safe, outdoor re-entry jobs, starting with cutting ivy off trees. These workers can help reboot the economy from the ground up.

Restoration jobs should be open to all, starting well above minimum wage (it’s hard work), whatever wages are required to attract the necessary workforce to control wildfires and invasives. Guaranteed jobs available for the taking compete with low-wage employers who need competition, instead of laborious wage mandates that drive businesses under and lay off employees, or just get eaten by inflation. Workers can better negotiate their value if they have employment options and can essentially strike by simply changing jobs.

Restoration is meaningful work and we get something out of it, infinitely better than unemployment handouts. Restoration wages will maintain its “sweat” value of the dollar. We do need to respect private sector investments and company health that provide jobs, but bottom-up injections of public money typically have better economic multiplier effects than military expenditures or trickle-down tax cuts.

I’m not a professional economist but I do know that pollution costs add up. If one day you can’t buy a salmon or security from forest fires, then the bottom drops out from under any economy and money become worthless. Our predicament is so serious that it would not be an overreaction to enlist the army and national guard in this battle for “natural” security. Military spending is already budgeted, so we may as well spend it to protect our homeland from ecological neglect perhaps more consequential than outright invasions. I suggest expanding the labor pool to include a year (or four) of national service, exchanging a year of restoration work for a year of education. Many young people would benefit from delaying college, particularly if they could pay for it (or pay off debt) in the process, plus a stipend to live on while they find their way.

But such mobilizations would be a waste of tax dollars if we don’t collectively quarantine invasive seed sources across all lands, public and private, and at the same time. Otherwise, neighboring invasive seed sources will just reinfest restoration work.

This will require incentives for all homeowners and land managers. I suggest property tax breaks commensurate with “eco-assessments.” As an optional opportunity, certified assessors could be invited to measure a property’s fire safety, stormwater control (cisterns, raingardens, tree canopy), noxious weed control, septic system health, soil health, smart-development, and other public benefits. Apply the eco-assessment annually to reduce property taxes and motivate maintenance and land stewardship. These certified assessors could be graduates of proposed forest-service programs and, as independent private businesses, could defne their own livable wages and upward mobility.

But we can’t just cut taxes – we have to balance revenues, and the super rich should contribute their patriotic share. But, we need a “tax shift” that motivates the entire population to make better choices for our environment and economy. We can’t deflect personal responsibility to the one-percent when we’re all part of the problem.

Beyond stewardship tax breaks, we need carbon tax hikes to balance the equation. If we pay for environmental jobs and free transit by making polluters pay, then taxes are optional – a “green loophole.” Without pollution deterrents, forests will burn, salmon will suffer, and droughts will affect food security. Without a balance of gas taxes and congestion pricing, our freeways will slow to a crawl, hamstringing our economy and free time. If we maintain full employment with ever-ready meaningful jobs, then the economy should stay balanced and strong while we adjust and fine-tune “tax shifts.”

We need a measure of social safety for those unable to work, but let’s not pay able people to do nothing. Let’s raise revenue responsibly without life-sucking income taxes that only the rich avoid. Imagine an economy where employment is guaranteed, housing is earned, transit is free, freeways flow, and people have options to avoid taxes by simply taking a bus, riding a bike, or stewarding their land.

This is a tax shift, “off our backs and on our side.”

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