EDUCATE. ADVOCATE. CONNECT.
Educate through storytelling, promoting science based research, and creating educational resources.
Advocate for individual and system change to protect children’s health from the impacts of air pollution and climate change. Promote healthy, equitable, and sustainable communities. Address environmental racism and the impacts it has on children’s health.
Connect caretakers, professionals, organizations, and communities through our Healthy Air Alliance of the Southeast. Bring the work of the Healthy Air Alliance of the Southeast to national & international platforms.
MISSION
Our mission is to protect children’s health by reducing the impacts of air pollution and climate change throughout the Southeast.
Mothers & Others For Clean Air creates partnerships between scientists, healthcare providers, parents, teachers, youth, and organizations to facilitate collective learning and action in the Southeast.
Clean, healthy air is essential to good health. When you can’t breathe, nothing else matters.
ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM
Breathing healthy air is an inherent human right. The science is clear, systemic environmental racism creates health disparities in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities in the Southeast. We are committed to creating spaces for dialogue and action to address systems which cause black & brown communities to disproportionately suffer from the health impacts of air pollution and climate change.
Even though air quality has improved over the years, nearly half of Americans still live in areas where air pollution reaches unhealthy levels. Many parts of the Southeast face pollution brought on by aging coal-fired power plants and growing traffic congestion. Click here to learn more in our research hub.
MOCA is a committed partner and ally in the work for justice, equity, diversity and inclusion which is why our Leadership Board formally adopted the Jemez Principles For Democratic Organizing.
WHERE WE WORK
Mothers & Others For Clean Air works across a 10 state region: Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia South Carolina, and Florida.
OUR VISION FOR CHANGE
- Protecting & strengthening existing clean air laws & rules.
These are vital science based public health protections which save lives. - Electrifying school bus fleets.
This leads to fewer illnesses like asthma and other lung diseases which are exacerbated by transportation emissions. - Siting & building sustainable schools.
Ensuring schools are built to minimize exposure to pollutants is necessary for children’s health and academic performance. - Increasing use, access & affordability of clean renewable energy & energy efficiency measures.
- A U.S. Climate Plan which reduces greenhouse gas emissions to 70% (of 2005 levels) by 2030.
To hold warming to 1.5oC the whole world needs to reduce emissions by 50%, but the U.S. needs to commit to more than 50%, in order to get the world to 50%.
OUR ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS
- Advance solutions and policies in the Southeast to protect the physical and mental health of children suffering the effects of air pollution and climate change.
- Increase public awareness of the direct connection between air pollution, chronic health conditions, and premature deaths.
- Shift the narrative on air pollution and climate change in the Southeast to a public health perspective.
- Increase public awareness of solutions to reduce and end air pollution.
- Break down silos in the Southeast and foster connection and dialogue between caretakers, communities, doctors, researchers and decision makers.
Highlights Of Our Work
- Medical Education Advisor Dr. Anne Mellinger Birdsong conducts an annual training of residents at Morehouse School of Medicine on the health impacts of air pollution, climate change and how to advocate.
- Medical Education Advisor Dr. Anne Mellinger Birdsong provided expert testimony in person and in writing five times to the EPA on ozone standard, benefit-cost rule, strengthening transparency in science rule, Particulate standard, and NEPA revisions. She most recently testified at Georgia state assembly on health hazards of natural gas.
- Released Short Documentary “Planet Prescription: Healing Healers. Healing Healers. Healing Us.” which listens to stories from health professionals as they witness how air pollution and climate change are impacting human health, especially children’s health and the communities impacted most by racial injustice. This collaborative film was made in partnership with the Climate Listening Project, Mothers & Others for Clean Air and Narrative Healthcare at Lenoir Rhyne University.
- Launched Health Voices For Clean Air social media video campaign reaching over 2600 people.
- Clean Air Conversations reached over 2000 people. This is a quarterly series we started to create a true space for dialogue and people can get their questions answered.
- Launched searchable online Research Hub. A database of science based reports at the intersection of health, air pollution & climate change.