Dominique Browning is the January Mom on a Mission!

January 22, 2023

By Dominique Browning, Senior Director and a Co-Founder of Moms Clean Air Force

Dominique was chosen as Healthy Child Healthy World’s January finalist for our 2023 Mom on a Mission® award. Read her first-person story below on how she became an advocate for children’s health. 

I’ve been obsessed with climate change for a couple of decades now, and, in the last five years, as evidence piles on about the damage we are doing to our gorgeous atmospheric quilt, my anxiety has only grown more intense.

But I’m also a mom. I cannot afford to be paralyzed, or hopeless, or even in denial, about anything that threatens my children. My two sons are grown now. I joke around about how they don’t need me any longer. But of course, that’s wrong. Our children need us to throw our hearts and souls, our brains, our passion, our creativity and ingenuity, into making their world safer.

I had been an editor at magazines and newspapers for decades, and published several books. But I couldn’t make the change I was looking for through the journalism. So I started a group that would help moms and dads advocate for healthy air.

Climate change is what motivated me to start Moms Clean Air Force, with a few other mothers—and aunts, and dads. But we work on other clean air issues too. I wanted a way to make myself heard. I wanted to draw on the power of my love for my children, and for our beautiful world. I wanted my voice united with the voices of other like-minded parents, to transcend the petty politics of left and right, and combat the corrupt science denial of people fighting for their right to pollute.

I didn’t feel like I had much choice, anyway. The only way to maintain hope is to do something constructive.

Three years into this journey, we are more than 200,000 moms and dads strong. We explain what is going on with air pollution—so that you don’t need a PhD to understand the issues. We describe and support solutions—so that we can stay on course, with hope, and hold our political representatives accountable. And we make Mother Love felt. Give it a voice. Restore its power in the political world, because, trust me, no politician wants to make a mother angry.

Know an amazing mom who is making a difference? Nominate her to be one of our Mom on a Mission® finalists! Learn more about Healthy Child Healthy World’s 2023 Mom on a Mission campaign by visiting Healthychild.org/mission. A special thank you to our sponsors Ology.