Key points:
- Climate change is impacting local communities–and the industries serving them
- Changing how two-year colleges prepare students for the world of work
- How higher ed and lifelong learning can shape a future-proof workforce
- For more news on career readiness, visit eCN’s Teaching & Learning hub
At this moment, the American workforce faces immense challenges: AI, demographic changes, and lagging academic achievement, to name only a few. To tackle these challenges, states need a future-focused strategy that expands opportunities. That kind of strategy–one that prioritizes our country’s prosperity over partisanship–cannot ignore the world we live in. Literally.
Climate change is impacting our industries and reshaping our future. While politicians may quibble about this, their constituents–especially those under the age of 30–do not.
We can and should plan for this, starting while students–the future of our workforce–are in school. We can do this by ensuring students are climate-literate and well-prepared for the industries and opportunities unique to their home communities. All jobs, across all industries, will have to adapt to the new challenges and realities we face, so employers will seek out those with high levels of adaptability and a clear understanding of place-based challenges, which are key components of preparing for climate-resilient careers.
Imagining a future reshaped by climate change–and a workforce and economy along with it–can be daunting. Even the Doomsday Clock recently moved the closest it has ever been to our demise in part because of the intense impacts of climate change. Luckily, there are examples we can look to so that we can best equip students with the knowledge and skills they need to understand and address the effects of climate change as they venture into the workforce.
There is little doubt that our warming planet is affecting local communities. You probably don’t have to look far to find examples. In Colorado, areas where skiing is the prominent local industry face massive financial hits as warming temperatures reduce the total number of ski days while increasing snowmaking costs. On the other side of the country, the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 95 percent of the world’s oceans, pushing lobsters farther north, creating volatility for Maine’s coastal economies. And rural Californians are seeing huge increases in home insurance prices because of the risk of wildfires.
Young people see what’s happening in their communities and they want to be able to respond. Harnessing that desire–by educating students about climate science and giving them the opportunity to explore local climate issues–better prepares them for the future.
In Colorado, the Seal of Climate Literacy is one vehicle used to help achieve that. This diploma endorsement was created through Senate Bill 24-014 and signed into law in 2024 by Gov. Jared Polis. It is both an academic accomplishment and a signal that young people have taken hands-on steps to understand and address the climate challenges facing their home communities. Students completing projects required to earn the Seal are gaining experience, building networks and exploring local careers in real time. By completing Seal projects aligned to Career Ready Practices, students build durable green skills–systems thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and communication–while applying them to real local climate and workforce needs.
The Seal’s popularity is spreading, and it isn’t confined to one region or political leaning. In the 2023-24 school year, 16 students earned it. In 2025, over 430 students from across the state did–from rural mountain towns to urban corridors.
The University of Tennessee’s East Tennessee Works (ETW) initiative is another promising model of how to equip students for a workforce impacted by climate change.
ETW helps match job seekers with local industry partners in advanced manufacturing and green construction. While the program doesn’t exclusively work with high school students, they do provide a scalable approach for students, with a special focus on underserved communities in Knoxville and rural southern Appalachia. The goal is to place 5,000 East Tennesseans into well-paying green jobs.
In this model, the university serves as a sort of local hub–funding the efforts to connect employers, workers, labor, schools and community-based organizations. In gaining visibility into all these angles, the University of Tennessee positions itself to objectively identify key industry needs and then support the training of the future local workforce to best meet those needs. With education as a launchpad, it’s possible to turn local climate challenges into learning, credentials, and career pathways.
America’s workforce will be stronger if we are nimble and responsive to the challenges we face, and that includes climate change. We owe it to our country to equip our students–our future workforce–with the knowledge and skills the economy demands from them. This is vital to their prosperity, and that of their families and communities.
Climate change will continue to cause economic shifts across industries, and it is imperative that we have the workers prepared with the skills necessary to meet the moment.
Elizabeth Harbaugh is the vice president of Lyra and is a former fifth grade teacher in Denver Public Schools. She holds a bachelor’s from the University of Puget Sound and a master’s in critical pedagogy from the University of Colorado Denver.
Mary Seawell is the CEO and founder of Lyra. She brings a wealth of experience in the education sector, combining systems-level thinking with her ability both to envision new ways of doing things and to get those ideas off the ground. Previously, Mary spent more than a decade leading the education portfolio at Denver-based Gates Family Foundation (GFF) where she has significantly influenced public education, especially in areas like school district governance, rural school innovation, and public policy.