“What’s in the Air” is a column by Dominique Browning, Moms Clean Air Force Co-Founder and Director, in which she explores life today through the lens of air quality and public health.
Most people, when they learn about the work I do fighting climate and air pollution, ask me how on earth I keep from getting so depressed that I can’t get up in the morning.
Indeed, there’s a big conversation going on among all kinds of climate advocates about “doomerism”—are we turning people off when we talk about how bad things can get—or even how bad they already are, for so many? Are we making people feel hopeless? “What’s the point? Why bother to pay attention? There’s nothing I can do.”
That’s where our work comes in. There is something I can do. There’s something all of us on the Moms team are doing, along with our engaged members too, around the country. And we do it every single day. We push to strengthen laws and regulations that keep bad stuff out of our air. We push for laws that create investments in energy sources that don’t throw carbon and methane into the atmosphere. We drive change at a big picture, systemic level. How? We testify—telling lawmakers and regulators our stories, our experiences with polluted air and climate disruption. We educate. We visit lawmakers. We sign petitions. We demand action. And we do not stop.
Tell Congress: Commit to Climate Investments and Clean Air Progress
These last four years have been immensely gratifying, compared to all the years before, because we are finally seeing historic investments in solving problems at a scale never before attempted: systemic changes in real time. This, I will add, under the leadership of a president who is a grandfather, who gets it.
As Martin Luther King Jr. titled a book: Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? From our perspective, global heating brings disruption, on all levels: social, medical, economic, political. We believe that doing nothing, denying the problem—whether because we don’t care or we are paralyzed—is a radical choice, putting us on a path to chaos.
We also believe that, as a community of concerned and engaged caregivers, we can help solve our problems. We must.
Is our work done? Not at all. Do we get frustrated? Yes! Regulations could be stronger at times. Entire swathes of industry—like the plastics industry—haven’t begun to be held accountable for endangering people’s health—much less the health of the planet. We have so much more to do to fight to protect our children.
But in the meantime, I feel enormous pride and gratitude for all that our members and our colleagues have done lately. We show up. Day after day, month after month, year after year. We tell Washington: Listen to your mothers! We tell EPA: We are bringing our Moms and our families to tell you our stories so that you so you can see not what is at stake in your work, but WHO is at stake. Last year, Moms testified in front of EPA 300 times! That’s engagement.
And that has helped create momentum. Watch this video, please. Take a moment to see what’s going on and why the climate story isn’t just about doom—though the problem remains urgent. If we can keep this momentum going, declarations of doom can recede to the shadows.
What choice do we have?
Tell Congress: Commit to Climate Investments and Clean Air Progress