Calling All Mothers in a Climate Crisis
When I received this earlier today I knew immediately that I needed to reprint it in full. It’s hard to imagine a more cogent and touching letter on Mother’s Day. If you agree, and you’d like to help, simply go here.
Being a mother makes the future present. I wake up in the middle of the night and worry about everything, from the milk I forgot to buy for tomorrow morning, to the school he will go to next year, to the planet he will live on as a man, and maybe as a father.
What will his world be if the oceans take back the coasts where most of the world’s people live? If drought and changing weather kill crops on farmlands that feed everyone? When there isn’t enough water? How will there be any safety, kindness, learning, justice, peace? What will become of all the animals?
Scary changes are happening faster than anticipated. But as we edge precariously close to bad tipping points for our natural systems, we have, almost amazingly, reached some good tipping points—for renewable energy, for global collaboration, for public awareness and action by people like you and me.
And that’s where you come in. What if I told you that we can fix the biggest climate problem going forward, that we can stop burning fossil fuels and still get around in a fully electrified world?
On this Mother’s Day, I’m asking you to join me to do the following:
Make climate a voting issue, and vote. The people we put in charge won’t act quickly enough if we don’t give them clear direction. Accept the radical truth that you and I can make a difference, and talk about climate change with everyone you know. Make this your fight, because climate change will affect you and the people you love most.
With clean energy solutions in hand, there’s no excuse for running dirty coal-fired power plants and building expensive new pipelines for oil and gas. Wind and solar energy are here. Electric vehicles are here. No one should be allowed to choose Exxon and Peabody Coal over your child and mine.
Climate change will affect you and the people you love most. Let’s do everything in our power to fix that.
Thank you for making this your fight,
Abbie Dillen
VP of Litigation for Climate & Energy
