President Joe Biden on Wednesday mobilized 20,000 young people as part of a new American Climate Corps that will train the next generation of workers in using climate resilient strategies to conserve public lands.
The workforce and service initiative is modeled after the New Deal program of the 1930s that rallied tens of thousands of young workers on projects like Red Rocks Amphitheater, roads and campgrounds in Rocky Mountain National Park and Forest Service trails across the state.
“The good news for Coloradans is that we are already there,” said Scott Segerstrom, the executive director of the Colorado Youth Corps Association, which represents eight conservation corps across the state that sends out 1,695 workers — from middle schoolers spending an hour a month to military veterans training to become wildland firefighters — on climate, clean energy and wildfire projects across the state.
