IT'S A MOMENT that no first-time parent ever forgets: Someone places a tiny bundle in your arms, and your life changes forever. Suddenly, you experience a whole new kind of love. More than anything, you unselfishly hope this new person's future will be better than your own. That's why parenthood may be the biggest leap of faith we ever take. It's exhilarating, transformative, and more than a little scary.

One of our early brushes with parental anxiety came thanks to Al Gore, when our daughter Olivia was a baby. As we sat together and watched the former vice president deliver an early version of the climate change presentation that later became the film An Inconvenient Truth, we grew increasingly alarmed at the future our daughter would face if climatologists' predictions came to pass. Never before had we seen the dangers of climate disruption spelled out so graphically. In that moment, we were thinking the same thing: We can't let this be our daughter's future. 

That was more than a decade ago. Though we haven't stopped worrying about our kids (does any parent ever?), we've managed to channel that alarm into practical actions to keep them safer, healthier, and, we hope, happier—both now and for years to come. That protective drive at the heart of parenting can be a powerful force for good in the world. You can't be a parent today and know what we know about how human activities are changing the world and not be moved to do something about it. 

So we were excited when friends of ours started an organization called Climate Parents to help parents make the connection between protecting the climate and securing their kids' future. 

Climate Parents has been doing great work around the country for several years now—on everything from promoting renewable energy in Nevada to ensuring that classroom science standards in South Dakota aren't hijacked by anti-science, pro-fossil fuel special interests. The Sierra Club has been proud to collaborate on such campaigns. And in the last year, Climate Parents made a major transformation—from being a valued partner of the Sierra Club's to being one of the newest parts of our organization.  

It's still called Climate Parents, and it still runs its own clean energy campaigns (check out climateparents.org). The difference now is that it also provides an organizing hub for parents to plug into flagship Club campaigns like Beyond Coal and Ready for 100—our initiative to move cities to commit to 100 percent clean energy. 

The decision to join forces happened last year, well before we knew the challenges that 2017 would bring. Not only do climate activists face a hostile federal government, but we also find ourselves mired in one of the most divisive political climates in our nation's 240-plus-year democratic history. Amid such polarization, how can we bring all kinds of people together on an issue as important as protecting our climate, air, and water?

Part of the answer is to reach out to people by appealing to our most basic shared value: the love that all parents (and grandparents and aunts and uncles) have for their kids. Right now, far too many parents are struggling with how dirty fuels and climate change are hurting their kids, whether through asthma, air pollution, or extreme weather. "That could have been my child" has been every parent's chilling realization at some point. We must act on that empathy.

This country has more than 150 million parents with children under 18 (not to mention grandparents, who are also invited to join Climate Parents). Even if the only thing we all have in common is our commitment to protecting the health and safety of our kids, that's still a pretty big thing. Once parents everywhere understand that taking action on climate and clean energy is part of our job description, maybe we'll have one less worry for our children today and into the future.