Love Your Mother. It’s a reminder to show your mother the care and respect she deserves, and that she’s worthy. It’s a warning that no matter your mother’s age or status, you need to love her now, while you still can. And … it’s the title of a wonderful new book that reminds us all that “Mother” not only signifies the woman who birthed us or raised us, but the one who provides our home: Mother Earth.
Love Your Mother: 50 States, 50 Stories, and 50 Women United for Climate Justice is written by environmental educator and activist Mallory McDuff. McDuff teaches at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina, where she mothers her two daughters and connects with women all over the country.
“I couldn’t raise my children … in a climate crisis, without the women I hold close to my heart,” she declares.
She profiles 50 of those women, one from each state, in three inspiring pages each. The women range in ages from their teens to their 70s and include activists, sculptors, poets, scientists, farmers, journalists, students, teachers, politicians, and more. They also represent a spectrum of identities and backgrounds: queer and straight; cis-gendered and nonbinary; atheist, agnostic, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Christian. As different as these all sound, they have much in common: Love for the Earth. Love for others. And a willingness to challenge authority and outdated social constructs, with a passion to make a difference.
In researching their stories, McDuff says, “I saw one truth… I am not alone. I am part of a larger climate movement that could turn this monumental threat into a collective call for justice based on unstoppable love above all.”
That movement includes women like Alabama’s Anna Jane Joyner, a pastor’s daughter who launched an online resource called “Good Energy: A Playbook for Screenwriting in the Age of Climate Change” that helps writers of films and TV shows like Madam Secretary include climate change in their story lines.
Caroline Lewis of Miami, Florida, a teacher for 25 years and another mother of two daughters, declares “I want to be an arsonist!” when she speaks to groups she’s trying to engage. “I want to light fires in elected officials, front line communities, and more,” says the founder of the CLEO Institute, which promotes climate literacy, leadership, and advocacy. She reminds people that “you have the superpowers of your voice, your vote, and your purse” to inspire activists and make change.
Colette Pichon Battle, a Slidell, Louisiana, attorney and co-executive director of the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, mobilizes Black, Latina, and Asian American women around the climate crisis and extractive industries when she observes, “Climate change is not the problem… Climate change is the most horrible symptom of an economic system that has been built for a few to extract every precious value out of this planet and its people, from our natural resources to the fruits of our human labor.”
Several activists associated with Moms Clean Air Force are also included in these page-turning profiles. Jacqui Patterson of Maryland and senior director of the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Program is highlighted for the “Coal Blooded Action Toolkit” she designed to help groups like Moms advocate for climate justice when addressing coal plant pollution that threatens their communities.
Heather McTeer Toney, the first black, female, and youngest former mayor of Greenville, Mississippi, and a former field director for Moms, gets kudos for pushing for climate justice to protect children from harm. As a mother and triathlete, she often jogged the streets of Greenville and saw firsthand the impacts of climate in the Mississippi Delta: oil spills, hurricanes, and flooding. President Obama appointed her to be the regional administrator for EPA’s Southeast Region, and she’s also worked as the vice president of community engagement for the Environmental Defense Fund. “We are going to protect our babies to no end … and the climate has something to do with all of it,” she says.
Documentary filmmaker Dayna Reggero of Franklin, North Carolina, collaborated with Moms to produce the five-part film series, “The Story We Want,” traveling to eight states to highlight mothers fighting sea-level rise in Florida, a natural gas blowout in California, and fracking in North Carolina.
Casey Camp-Horinek, elder, matriarch, and hereditary drum keeper for Ponco Nation of Oklahoma, advocates for the inherent rights of nature as one strategy to confront the colonizing oil and gas industries on Tribal land. As a grandmother and movement-maker, she says humans have strayed from the balance with Mother Earth and Father Sky, and we must find our way back. “All of our conversations about nature’s rights begin around mama’s kitchen table,” she told the audience. “All my daughters and granddaughters go to MIT.” She paused and smiled for effect: “That’s Matriarch in Training.”
With 50 stories to choose from, you can open the book to any state and read with wonder.
In every single story, one theme stands out, says McDuff: “These women are damned good at working together… In this climate movement, we have the power to bring people into life-giving collaboration and joy, rather than drive individuals away with fatalism and doom.
“Take a deep breath,” the author encourages us, “and repeat with me: We are not alone. And it’s not over yet.”
TELL EPA: PROTECT OUR FAMILIES FROM HARMFUL OIL AND GAS POLLUTION