New WPA-Style Posters Promoting the Civilian Climate Corps

Art toward the Green New Deal

As the twin crises of climate change and inequality grow more pervasive and undeniable, the calls for a Green New Deal appreciate value and urgency. Not only does a clean energy transition require a physical renewable power infrastructure, but also an economy-wide mobilization and a commitment to justice.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Ed Markey are the original Green New Deal resolution introducers. Their version of the program emphasizes a strong state-forward approach akin to FDR's New Deal. The New Deal included the massive employment programs of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the current Green New Deal vision has a similar program, proponents call the Civilian Climate Corps (CCC).

The WPA hired tons of artists to design posters for various state and societal agencies, programs, and public awareness campaigns. These posters included propaganda and promotional content for national parks, public works, and principles of progressivism. The particular style developed for artworks on national parks, preserves, and forests came to be known as the WPA style.

A Green New Deal should absolutely carry on the tradition of this art style, as seen in AOC’s Green New Deal posters developed by Tandem, an art firm in NYC. Art plays a critical role in shaping a political agenda, offering a medium through which people can experience an alternative vision.

For Works Posters, a Texas-based art firm, I developed four posters promoting the Civilian Climate Corps. I chose to feature national parks imagery to bridge the gap between the New Deal and Green New Deal:

The New Deal created many of our national parks. The Green New Deal will save them from the worst-case scenario effects of climate change.

The posters feature Olympic National Park, the Rocky Mountains, Denali, and Glacier Bay. A Civilian Climate Corps would employ millions of people across the country, including on public park lands, to advance climate mitigation and land stewardship rooted in Indigenous knowledge.

When we imagine the Green New Deal or even the CCC, we often envision infrastructure and economic concepts. Jobs. Retrofits. Construction. Engineering. And while these are undeniably core parts of the program, we shouldn’t ignore the role that art, education, and public lands play. The program isn’t just for jobs and renewables; it's a framework for saving nature as we know it and for nature no longer being divorced from humanity.

Posters like those of Works Posters, designed by D. J. Gil, remind us that a green future is rooted in an ecological economic substrate. The caption, “Trails, Trees, Tomorrow,” invites the viewer to apply futurism to something considered old and static. We think of national parks as always remaining the same, but the reality of climate change paints a grimmer picture. Our national parks are already altered by anthropogenic global warming, from fires to floods, creating changes in wildlife populations, biodiversity, and the experiences of human visitors.

Let’s commit to saving our public lands and the artwork that honors them.

CCC: Olympic

CCC: Rocky Mountains

CCC: Denali

CCC: Glacier Bay

You can see more posters, including Green New Deal-themed artwork, at https://works-posters.myshopify.com/