Meet the Moms Who Are Fed Up with the Climate Crisis — and Fighting to 'Change the Conversation' - PEOPLE

Meet the Moms Who Are Fed Up with the Climate Crisis
Human Interest Meet the Moms Who Are Fed Up with the Climate Crisis — and Fighting to 'Change the Conversation' "There is no new normal,” Moms Clean Air Force founder Dominique Browning tells PEOPLE By Susan Young Published on August 9, 2023 05:01PM EDT Trending Videos Elizabeth Hauptman, Hazel Chandler, Jen Chandler, Lux Ho. Photo: Courtesy Hazel Chandler Dominique Browning has commandeered an impressive army of more than a million moms, ready to motivate politicians and the government to clean up an environment they argue is careening towards destruction. “There is no new normal. Normal is gone,” Browning, who started Moms Clean Air Force about 13 years ago, tells PEOPLE. “We have to get rid of this idea that things are going [to] be normal and stable. We have to work with what we have and understand the consequences of not doing anything.” Around 2010, Browning 68, began having conversations with women who had expertise in climate policy, regulatory and legal clean air issues, marketing and business to discuss how to engage and mobilize people, specifically mothers, to fight climate pollution. “The overriding goal was to change the conversation from polar bears to people,” Browning says. “Bottom line is, we had to stop thinking about this as something that's going to happen far away. And it's going to impact some poor creatures, but it's not gonna change our lives.” When Summer Weather Turns Deadly: ‘It Was Like a Biblical Event,’ Says Man Whose Parents Died in Flooding Browning, who says she has an obsession with climate change and air pollution, became frustrated about the lack of connection people had with the issues. "People didn't understand what climate change was, why it mattered to them and why they should care," she says. "So that's why we started Moms." Although her own two sons were grown by the time she started the organization, which was highlighted in last week's issue of PEOPLE, Browning says she still felt "a very maternal instinct to protect them" and future generations. Since then, it's grown into a national organization of more than 1.5 million moms over a dozen state chapters to strengthen laws and rules regarding clean air, toxic chemicals and climate. "It's important to reach the power maker, reach the people who are making decisions and passing laws, and they only care about their voters and money.," Browning says. "So if you can get big donors in your town to say, Hey, we've, we're seeing it. It's 130 degrees for five days in a row, and you've gotta do something, that's huge." Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Celerah Hewes, 44, of Albuquerque, started with Moms Clean Air Force in 2017 when her daughter Evelyn was about 5. She works directly with key oil and gas states like her native New Mexico, as well as with national legislation that will protect families from pollution and climate change. Hewes tells PEOPLE she took a group of young children to meet with United States Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland to talk about their concern about plastic pollution. Jen and Hazel Chandler. Courtesy Hazel Chandler "They felt like they had the floor and started asking her questions. To me, it was like seeing a new generation of empowered [people]," Hewes says. "So [they] understand that our elected officials work for us and not the other way around. When they are adults, they can continue to demand change." In 2022, New Mexico was the second-largest producer of crude oil after Texas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But it is moving toward clean energy. The EIA reported in 2022 that about 35% of New Mexico’s total electricity net generation came from wind, more than five times the share it contributed in 2015. New York Woman Dies After Being 'Swept Away' in Front of Fiancé amid '1,000-Year' Storm Hewes remembers moving back to her hometown from San Francisco and realizing the already sweltering area was starting to get hotter. The air was different the summer before her daughter, now 10, was born, Hewes recalls. And wildfires hundreds of miles away were casting ash on every outside surface. “To me, it was sort of apocalyptic,” Hewes tells PEOPLE. “What is the world my child is going to grow up in? If this is where we are right now, what was it going to be like in 20 years when she’s my age?” Hewes also took note that her daughter’s allergies were getting worse, and when she took her to summer swim camp, it was too hot for the children to swim for more than 20 minutes at a time. After asking those questions and looking at her child and her hometown, she realized she wanted to make a difference to slow climate change. Great-Grandparents and Dog Died Inside Home After AC Broke amid Extreme Texas Heat: 'Huge Loss' According to Pew Research, 69% of Americans favor the U.S. taking steps to become carbon neutral by 2050. The same share say the U.S. should prioritize developing renewable energy sources such as wind and solar over expanding the production of oil, coal and natural gas. Carbon neutrality means releasing no more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than is removed. “There's no question that this is a turning point,” Browning says. “This is the summer that many, many people are going to remember as the time that they finally understood what extreme weather and climate disruption are all about.” “We have the double-whammy of extreme heat and the fifth-worst city in the nation for air quality,” adds field organizer Hazel Chandler, 77. “Those two are married together in cooking the toxic soup of ozone. The ozone and the heat put all of our health at risk, but it is very much increased for young children.” Man Found Dead in Car with 2 Flat Tires and Broken AC at Death Valley National Park amid Extreme Heat The South and Southwest have been experiencing a historic heat wave, with Phoenix at the epicenter. The city logged its hottest month on record in July, the hottest month ever observed in a U.S. city, according to the Arizona State Climate Office. Mother Nature appears to be giving the Earth a wake-up call, which Browning believes should be answered immediately. “So the ocean has been a sink for a lot of our carbon pollution that we've been throwing up,” Browning says. “And the oceans now are saying like, we can't do this anymore. Our chemistry is changing. and you look at the ocean and think we pitiful little humans changed the chemistry of the ocean.” And what was changed might still be restored. “We are not climate doomsayers, not by a long shot,” Browning says. “That's the problem with doomsaying, it makes you feel paralyzed. We actually have the wonderful experience of working with people who aren't putting their heads in the sand. But it just doesn’t happen overnight.” Browning says that to make real change, you have to show up day after day, telling government agencies like the EPA that strong rules are needed to cut back pollution and writing politicians to create new infrastructure to support the change to green energy. “I think that there's a lot of misunderstanding about deadlines and trigger points and what's gonna happen,” Browning says. “It is true that as we're seeing this summer, things are unfolding more rapidly than scientists had predicted. But there is a lot that we can do and a lot that we are doing to try to get emissions down and under control.” How Breathing Toxic Air in Phoenix Left Cancer Patient with Fractured Spine: 'The Coughing Wouldn't Stop' And the way to make that happen, Browning says, is to “harness the power of moms and people who love our children and ask them to engage on issues of changing laws and making strong regulations to protect us." "If you feel like you're dialing out, dial Washington," Browning says. "Let's tell them we care. Tell Washington to listen to your mothers." "It's important to reach the power maker, reach the people who are making decisions and passing laws, and they only care about their voters and money," she adds. "So if you can get big donors in your town to say, Hey, we've, we're seeing it. It's 130 degrees for five days in a row, and you've gotta do something, that's huge." If you are interested in joining the force, go to Moms Clean Air Force to find out more. Additional reporting by Susan Katz Keating and Wendy Grossman Kantor