Climate Forward: Moms are a growing force in the climate movement

Source: Climate Forward: Moms are a growing force in the climate movement

Many of you write to us and tell us about your feelings of powerlessness
in the face of a global climate catastrophe. That sentiment is giving
rise to a small but potentially potent force in the climate movement:
moms, who have been catapulted into action by the hazards facing their
children.

In Brooklyn, moms are taking aim at the world’s biggest asset manager,
BlackRock. In Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Denver, moms are pushing lawmakers in
Congress for climate legislation. In London, Lahore and Delhi, moms are pushing their governments to clean
up the air from the very pollutants that warm the planet.

Chandra Bocci, mother of a 4-year-old in Brooklyn, summed up her
motivation this way: “I want to be able to say to my kid, ‘We’re trying
to do something.’”

Of course, many climate
groups have long been led by women who happen to be mothers. But what
I’m referring to here are groups that deliberately deploy mom moral
authority. Grief and rage drive them and, as Bocci put it, “a
desperation as moms of young kids.”

Some are focused on local issues. Mothers Out Front has agitated against
a gas pipeline in New York City. Others, like Bocci’s group, Sunrise
Kids NYC, have singled out fossil fuel financiers, once staging what
they called a protest play date at the Westchester County farmhouse of
Larry Fink, the BlackRock chairman.

As Bocci and I spoke on a video call, her son Vesper climbed onto her
lap to complain that he didn’t get a chance to press Fink’s doorbell
repeatedly, as the other kids had. (More on that play date in a bit.)

Mom-led environmental movements are not new. Mothers of East Los
Angeles, or MELA, was among the first groups to call out environmental
racism, when, in the early 1990s, they protested the establishment of a
toxic waste incinerator in a largely Latino neighborhood. The Chipko
movement in India and the Green Belt Movement in Kenya were built by
mothers. Lois Gibbs leveraged her credentials as a mother to draw
attention to toxic waste dump in Niagara Falls, N.Y., which eventually
led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.

A calamity that strikes your child can drive any mother to extraordinary
action. That was certainly true for Columba Sainz of Phoenix. Only when
her daughter was diagnosed with asthma did she learn of the city’s
extremely hazardous air. Sainz is active with a group called EcoMadres,
affiliated with a national group known as Moms Clean Air Force. In
Phoenix, its members have pushed city officials to plant shade trees in
neighborhoods disproportionately burdened by extreme heat, testified at
federal hearings to strengthen air pollution regulations and marched to
the offices of their state senators to demand climate legislation.
Nationally, Moms Clean Air Force has successfully lobbied for federal
money for electric school buses.

“We are mothers and we know what our kids are going through,” Sainz
said. “We just have to go wherever we can go and be that voice, and
motivate the voices of other moms.”

Thing is, moms are never just moms. Some are climate scientists who call
themselves Science Moms, and who have created tip sheets and online
videos to help others grasp the science. “As scientists and moms, we
want to provide other moms the climate change information and the
resources they need,” said Melissa Burt, an atmospheric scientist at
Colorado State University and a co-founder of the group. “Moms are
worried, overwhelmed and anxious about the climate crisis, and the way
to push through the anxiety is by taking action.”