We’re thrilled to welcome Jessica Gottlieb to the Moms Clean Air Force. Jessica is a career blogger and digital strategist. She is madly in love with technology but her first love is her two kids and husband. Jessica is the eponymous writer at JessicaGottlieb.com and a panelist at Momversation. She has spent a good bit of her blogging career writing in shades of green at Green Options, EcoChildsPlay, MomsLA and Celsias, but she rounded it out with a little humor at National Lampoon. She has received accolades from Forbes, Nielsen, Babble and Fast Company as well as coverage from every news source worth mentioning from the New York Times to NPR and from Fox News to CNN.
I’m a green mom. My friend Jennifer reminds me that there are shades of green. I’m not off the grid and I only sometimes shop at secondhand stores. I’m mindful about what I consume and I love giving my kids organic foods that are locally grown.
I’m an Angelino so I worry about the condition of our water. In addition to living next to an ocean that provides both life and illness. There’s world class surfing and fishing, some of the most beautiful beaches on the planet, and occasionally there’s a little hepatitis in the water.
It’s easy to understand that we don’t want pesticides in our produce, hepatitis in our water or plastic bags choking the marine life. What I don’t see, and I am guilty of ignoring, are the pollutants in the air.
When we drive south on the 405 we pass Wilmington and acres of smokestacks. The kids always ask about them, why they’re there, what they power and other questions. I find myself flabbergasted. Are they bad? Um no, but they aren’t good. Do we need them? I suppose, but if we changed our consumption we might not. What happens to the people who live here?
And I tell them that in communities like this the incidence of Asthma is higher than in other neighborhoods. I tell them that kids miss a lot of school and they don’t learn as well. They ask why those parents don’t move. It’s complicated I say.
My kids want to know what keeps the dirty air from coming to our neighborhood, and I tell them the truth. Nothing.
But then, because I’m human, we drive a little further away from the smokestacks and the oil refineries and the skies appear bluer and I forget. It’s out of sight and out of mind.
I wish it was out of the air, but I’m smart enough to know that’s not the case.
My mission has been to leave things a little nicer than I found them. In an effort to stay true to this mission I’m joining the MOMS CLEAN AIR FORCE. I’m hopeful that Moms like me will remember to turn off the lights when they aren’t in the room and little puffs of smoke won’t land in Wilmington. Even more so I’m hopeful that we will affect change and as a community demand that our children, all our children, get the clean air they deserve.