I’ll admit it. I’m addicted to Grey’s Anatomy. My dad was a surgeon, and as a kid I really wanted to go to medical school when I grew up. But I couldn’t even get through premed. Advanced calculus undid me.  Now I get my medical thrills from TV.

So when Jessica Capshaw reached out to help us at Moms Clean Air Force, it was all I could do to keep from suiting up and slapping a scalpel into her waiting hand. Capshaw plays Dr. Arizona Robbins on the ABC show, Grey’s Anatomy; she’s the new head of pediatric surgery. Jessica and her husband, Christopher Gavigan, who is a co-founder of The Honest Company, have two children, Luke and Eve, and are expecting a third child in early summer.

Years ago, I had a volunteer job at a New York City hospital, in the pediatric oncology ward. While it was heartbreaking to see the suffering of tiny patients, it was also astonishing to bear witness to their bravery and strength. I felt honored to read and play games with them. Some of those faces, swathed in white bandages, are forever engraved in my memory. I think of them whenever I read research linking childhood cancers to certain pollutants.

We can prevent toxic air pollution. The more I learn about what is spewing out of coal-fired power plants, the more outraged I become that this is legal. We have to end it. Capshaw has it right: polluters have money and influence, but moms have love. Lots of love. And mother love is the strongest force of all.

Right now, we are awaiting finalization of the strong new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards–twenty-one years in the making–signed by Administrator and Mom Lisa Jackson (whose son suffers from asthma). But we can’t wait silently. The opposition is in full gear to kill or delay these rules.

Moms have to tell Washington: Listen to your mothers! Stop toxic air pollution. Who is going to protect our children if we don’t?

Click here to sign a petition to stop toxic air pollution.

Recently, the musician/philosopher Raffi visited us online at Moms Clean Air Force and left a generous, kind, enthusiastic vote of confidence about our work. We were thrilled. Raffi’s music was as much a part of my children’s lives as any book we shared. Raffi says our kids are “Beluga Grads“. But he should know that those grads come with Beluga Moms and Dads–many of us can still sing along. Raffi’s passion now is expressed in his organization called Child Honoring. We’ve been having some fascinating conversations — inspiring me to put some fundamental thoughts into writing.

Our work at Moms Clean Air Force is driven by mother love–but what does that mean, exactly? First, that love isn’t just “owned” by moms. I’m meeting everyone from dads to daughters who feel exactly the same force. One of my partners in this effort has never had children, and she’s as passionate in this cause as any mom with a tiny newborn. Raffi has never had children; he has always felt connected to the world’s children. (I can vouch for that!)

So what is mother love? I’ve decided it is a value, rather than a description of source, or location. It is a value that embodies caring, compassion, and awareness. Anyone can have that value–anyone who stops to look around and see and hear and feel what it is about children that is so inspiring, and so deserving of honor.

And wait a minute! All of us were children. (Duh. But sometimes those Duh realizations are…explosive.) We can all remember being children, and even feel as though we are still children, in part; we still carry that spirit within us…if we give ourselves a chance to reconnect with it.

The strength of mother love has a great deal to do with politics, though it might be an odd pairing on the face of it. Once you connect with it–with the compassion that girds the way people see children, and the fierceness in the face of anything that will harm, devalue, undermine a child–once you connect with mother love, it alters the way you listen to political discourse.

An example from our lives here at Moms Clean Air Force: “regulations“. Many people hear that word as a business word. Regulation, to some, means red tape–red duct tape, the kind that is so strong that you can be paralyzed if you get tangled in it. It has all sorts of stifling connotations. There’s a great deal of validity in these ways of hearing the word regulation.

And this use of the word regulation rules the airwaves these days.

Some of us hear “regulation” and we feel relief. To us, regulation means protection. Regulations mean order, working order–the opposite of chaos. Regulations keep us safe. Regulations mean seat belts, not red tape. Regulations mean we can trust that the air we breathe is not toxic; the water we drink will not make us sick. Regulations mean that the plastic duck our baby chews on will not poison her. Yes, regulations mean limitations. But sometimes limitations are what we want–as every mom and dad knows, when we have to tell our kids Don’t Bite! Don’t Hit! Don’t Shove!  In other words…better words: Be Gentle! Be Safe! So for us, thinking about air pollution, regulations mean Be Kind.

Regulations mean not only that someone (government–which, after all, is really only made up of we, the people) is taking care of us–regulations mean are taking care of one another. We are trying to make the world we share a better place. Regulations, to our ears, are about nurturing, with a firm hand. They are about respect for all life. They are about taking responsibility for what we do.

Mother love is the value that guides us at Moms Clean Air Force.

It isn’t a Republican or Democrat word. It is a spirit. It certainly guides me. It means that I put protecting the young ones, our next generation, front and center in the choices I make. It means that I am fierce in the face of anything and anyone who deliberately–or carelessly–visits harm on our children.

Come to think of it: I really like the name of the new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards that Administrator/Mom Lisa Jackson has given us. “Standards” implies qualities–excellence, achievement. Standards are something we live up to. We work towards standards. Standards can be embraced by large communities, and we can help one another meet them.

The blanket statement “regulations are bad” simply throws the baby out with the bathwater. And the blanket statement “regulations are good” is dumb, too. The problem is that we’re losing sight of the subject. Our conversation shouldn’t be about regulations, though that’s the subject of many of our sentences. The real subject is children’s health.

Surely that is a bigger way to frame our desire for clean air–so that we can actually have a civilized conversation? Surely there are other ways to cross the bridge called “regulations” so that we can all breath easier, knowing our children are safer?

The generosity–and genuine concern–of moms never ceases to amaze me. Out of the blue I wrote to Julianne Moore, knowing she is an activist mom, asking her if she would help us spread the word about the connection between toxic air pollution and children’s health. Within days, she was right there–right there in my living room, hastily converted into a film studio!

Julianne has long been one of my favorite actors. But what’s more wonderful is how beautiful she is as a person. I expected to have to give her a fast primer on mercury poisoning, asthma, behavioral issues, and all the other subjects we talk about at Moms Clean Air Force. Julianne was five steps ahead of me.

What she really wanted to puzzle out was how something everybody wants–clean air–had become so polarized that the subject was now a political football, kicked back and forth as crowds roar with overheated, misleading rhetoric.

And, she wondered, why weren’t more parents outraged that polluters are allowed to buy the right to pollute, with their lobbying dollars and political contributions?

In December, Administrator & mom, Lisa Jackson delivered to President Obama the new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards; this is the most important environmental legislation of his tenure. The ink wasn’t even dry before the opposition geared up. Senator Inhofe began proceedings for a Congressional Review Act to stop the rule, and forbid EPA from ever visiting the subject again. Other threats are looming.

We –We, the people–cannot buy clean air. We can only fight for it. The work of the Clean Air Act is far from done, though much good has been done and our skies are bluer. The problem now is that many pollutants are invisible. Air pollution isn’t just “dirty.” It is poisonous.

Time for Naptime Activism. Let your Congressperson know that you want the Clean Air Act protected. You want an end to toxic air pollution.

Open up those strollers, bundle up your babe or grab the Snugli, and  join Julianne Moore and Moms Clean Air Force. Roll on over to your local politician’s comfy offices and speak your minds. We really can have it all: Clean air for healthier children, a vibrant economy, and bright lights–till bedtime.

I’m what you might call an Older Mom. I’m 55, and my kids are in their twenties.  I guess they’re now officially “adult children”, out of the house and living on their own. But you know what? Once a mom, always a mom. I still worry about them.

That’s why I am outraged that some powerful politicians and lobbyists are gearing up to make it easier for polluters to poison our air.  They want to cut funding from the Environmental Protection Agency that enforces our Clean Air Act, and they want to weaken pollution standards.

The Environmental Protection Agency has released the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, the first-ever national policy for coal- and oil-fired power plants to limit emissions of 84 different poisons, including mercury, benzene, hydrogen chloride and radioactive materials. These are lethal toxins that cause brain, lung and heart damage, cancers, diseases, and premature death.

Air pollution isn’t just dirty. It is poisonous.

Just because we don’t see toxic emissions doesn’t mean they aren’t hurting us — and our babies.

Mercury is really terrible stuff. It is a neurotoxin that harms fetuses, and the developing brains of young children. Over 400,000 newborns are affected by mercury pollution every single year. As the American Academy of Pediatrics notes, “mercury in all of its forms is toxic to the fetus and children, and efforts should be made to reduce exposure …to pregnant women and children as well as the general population.”

Here’s what really burns me up. The cost-effective technology to keep coal plants from spewing lethal chemicals into the air is available right now. Many power plants already use it to meet the new emissions standards.

We can keep poisons out of our air.

Every once in a while, I indulge in fantasies about what it will be like to have grandchildren. I even go to bookstores and browse through beautiful picture books, remembering holding a freshly bathed child in my lap. That gets me thinking about the kind of world my grandchildren will be born into.

I want to be able to give my children the reassurance that I did what I could to make the world a better place for them, and for their children.

Toxic air pollution is hurting us — and our babies — everyday. It’s time we put a stop to it. Join us at Moms Clean Air Force, to fight the good fight.

No one knows busy better than a mom. I’ve got dear friends who have just had twins, and after a day with the infants, I’m exhausted. And I don’t have even have night duty.

I remember those days as a young mother – I couldn’t even find time to wash my hair, and I would get to the end of the day wondering what I had accomplished. Well, the answer to that, at least, was clear: I had accomplished getting my own infant through another day, protecting him, nurturing him, feeding him, hovering over him, making sure he kept breathing, surrounding him with love.

Lately I’ve been struck by how much we all buy to keep our babies safe from harm — the right cleaning products, organic foods, paint with no fumes. But we all have to open the windows, go out the door, breathe in the air. We all want that air to be as clean as possible. And for that, we can’t buy anything (though polluters want to buy the right to pollute.) We have to do something .

That’s why Moms Clean Air Force believes so deeply in what I call Naptime Activism. Because I know how hard it is to find a moment for myself, much less for the whole world. But I also know that the whole world is what awaits my children. And I know that sometimes, being a good mom means being an engaged citizen.

Naptime Activism means you can do things to make the world better, safer, and cleaner – while your child naps. You can sign a petition to Congress faster than you can change a diaper. In the blink of an eye you can thank another great mom, our EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson; she is the brave mother of a child afflicted with serious asthma. She’s doing everything she can, not only for her child, but for all of ours. We’ve got to back her up. And yes, it is personal.

Naptime Activism is what an entirely new generation of moms is going to turn to in order to make their voices heard. Because when people in Washington D.C. – or out on the campaign trail – are shouting about abolishing the EPA and killing the Clean Air Act, which has done so much to protect our children.

With Naptime Activism, moms can do great good – and there’s even time left over for mom to take a nap. Right now, we’re telling Power Plants to Clean Up Their Act.

If you haven’t done so, please Join Moms Clean Air Force, and please, twitter this post out to ten friends who should join you.