From October 1973 to March 1974, America suffered from an oil crisis like none before. The Organization of Arab Petroleum Export Countries (OAPEC) had declared an oil embargo on the United States due to US involvement with Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Americans, accustomed to blithely ramping up their thermostats when the indoor temperature reached 60 degrees, were suddenly confronted with ballooning fuel bills. Those on fixed or low incomes, including the elderly, couldn’t afford the rate hikes and suffered terribly in parts of the country where winter was most severe.

As a result of the  winter’73-’74 crisis, the federal government had learned that by taking certain measures, like weather-stripping windows and doors and insulating attics, homeowners could reduce the use of fuel, while also saving money and preserving their health. Three years after that winter, the Department of Energy created the US Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP).

Today, when we are faced with a climate crisis unlike anything human civilization has encountered in centuries, the energy panic of the 1970s feels very tame indeed. But the federal government had been prescient. The weatherization technology of the 1970s may have been rudimentary, but the theory was sound. Not only does weatherization reduce a home or building owner’s energy costs – and not only does it create a healthier indoor environment – but it also has the potential to wean nations from excessive dependence on fossil fuels.

Ultimately, weatherization can lessen the damage that human beings have brought to this exquisite and unique planet. It is hard to wrap our minds around this concept, or this outcome, even for those of us who have been weatherizing low-income apartment buildings for years who continue to see, and to hear about, the positive changes that weatherization has wrought.

But drive down a state highway one night and imagine that all those brightly lit strip malls are receiving their energy from renewable sources, or that the rooftops are covered with vegetation to reduce heat loss, or that the lights blazing inside the acres of space are energy efficient. Imagine that, and then, perhaps, we can all begin to grasp the impact that universal weatherization, endorsed by nations everywhere, will have on our globe. Consider the energy savings and environmental benefits if all the existing apartment buildings in New York City, London, Beijing, Sao Paolo, and Moscow were retrofitted and if all new structures in these cities were built green. Universal weatherization could begin to reverse the climate crisis.

There has been much media concern in the last months that weatherization funds coming through the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) are not producing the desired results. The work isn’t happening quickly enough, according to the complaints. The green jobs aren’t appearing fast enough.

Interestingly, if we examine the accounts of the Great Depression of the 20th century, when 25 percent of America’s workforce was out of a job, we see the same complaint surfacing. In the early 1930s, however, the federal government was employing people directly. The Labor Department, for instance, directly hired citizens to form the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), in which they were paid to plant trees and build bridges. The government did not funnel money through local agencies—not initially at least. In many cases, those local agencies did not yet exist.

Today, state agencies and local non-profit organizations do exist, so the processes by which we use federal funds to weatherize buildings or put people back to work are more layered and complicated than they were in the 1930s. Results come more slowly than we all might wish. But do not fear. It is happening. The additional, vital importance of weatherization is that it is putting people to work. What is more, we are training our most vulnerable citizens how to do the weatherization.

In New York City, where the Community Environmental Center is located, non-profit organizations such as Solar One, Green City Force, STRIVE, and NEW (Non-traditional Employment for Women) are training young adults from disadvantaged communities and older men and women who have fallen out of the work force. Non-profit organizations are instituting similar initiatives all over the country.

And weatherization is not short-term employment. The skills these men and women acquire will serve for their entire careers. Weatherization will be with us for generations to come. Indeed, out of a potentially catastrophic climate crisis and the worst economic downturn in nearly a century, a beautiful synergy could emerge from the solutions to these problems. And weatherization will be the key.

Richard M. Cherry has nearly 40 years of working experience in the New York affordable housing field.  He founded the not-for-profit Community Environmental Center (CEC) in 1994 to address the housing and energy efficiency needs of low- and middle-income communities. Through weatherization CEC has helped over 300,000 people save more than $270 million in utility costs and prevented the emission of over 750,000 tons of carbon dioxide. Prior to founding CEC, Cherry was Executive Vice President and General Counsel and President of Housing Subsidiary Companies at the New York Housing Coalition.

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