Every day of a mother’s life revolves around her children. Most days are very much like others, filled with getting youngsters ready for the day, going to work, preparing meals, and the hundreds of things that go into running a household. But July 7 was not another routine day for me. It was the day I went to Washington, D.C., to participate in a climate-change protest on Capitol Hill.
Even though the activities of that day were different for me, the focus was the same as every other day: my child. As a member of the Moms Clean Air Force, I brought my child with me to participate in a unique “play-in” protest urging action on climate change and America’s Clean Power Plan put forward by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Lindsay PaceI am not a professional activist, but I cannot ignore climate change when I can see what is happening in the world and knowing that, if there is no action, things are just going to be worse for my child. When seven of the top 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1998, I wonder what kind of world my child will live in when she is my age. In a world that is already troubled by record-setting heat waves, droughts, wildfires, flooding from torrential rains and other extreme weather events, I must do everything I can to protect my family.
That is one of the reasons I feel so strongly that every mom should support America’s Clean Power Plan to rein in carbon pollution from power plants.
Today, we let power plants – the single biggest source of climate pollution caused by humans – emit unlimited carbon pollution. America’s Clean Power Plan would close this major pollution loophole. What the EPA wants to do is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants by just under a third over the next 15 years. By doing so, it also will slash by a quarter the soot and smog pollutants that jeopardize the health of kids and other vulnerable Americans.