Mother Earth is having the best Mother’s Day she’s had in a long time.

With humans under lockdown, the rest of Mother Earth’s living planet is coming out of hiding and celebrating.

Jellyfish and other underwater life are visible in Venice’s canals without boats stirring up the water. The Himalayas can be seen from India now that the pollution has cleared. Goats and sheep are grazing along the airport highway in Istanbul because they can.

As awful as covid-19 is, it has given Mother Earth’s humans a glimpse of what is possible with swift and major actions to halt, and even reverse, climate change toward the good old days she remembers.

This Mother’s Day is a celebration for all women, not just those who raise children, because women are on the frontlines of rebirthing our planet. Women continue to be the majority of climate activists.

Women are also impacted most by climate change. One reason is because the poor are hardest hit by climate change, and women and girls are disproportionately poor. Another reason is that violence against women increases during disasters whether natural or human made.

How is it, then, that women are still in the minority of climate change decision makers? For example, women comprised only twenty-two percent of delegation heads to the 2018 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  

The greatest gift we can give Mother Nature on this Mother’s Day is to demand our voices be heard on behalf of the climate.

Women know how to get s*** done.

As the late groundbreaking Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm said, “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”

It’s our time.

I think Mother Nature would agree.

Happy Mother’s Day.