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ON A DAMP WEDNESDAY NIGHT, women trickle into a home on Jamaica Plain’s Eliot Street, shedding winter coats, chitchatting about work and kids, grabbing a wineglass and a bit of cheese. Some have come intrigued to learn more, others simply because a neighbor invited them. Eventually, they meander into the living room, settling on chairs and couches around a projection screen, awaiting the pitch.

In another era, what’s for sale might be Tupperware; on another block somewhere, perhaps Stella & Dot jewelry or pricey skin-care products. But here, tonight, what’s being sold is no less than saving the planet.

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“CONVINCE ME.”

That’s the gauntlet I threw down weeks earlier to Kelsey Wirth, 44, a seasoned entrepreneur and mother of two who’s the driving force behind Mothers Out Front, the upstart nonprofit throwing house parties (and stroller-dotted Beacon Hill rallies) in an effort to unite Massachusetts mothers in the fight against climate change. I present the perfect test case: a South Shore mom who schleps the kids around in a gas guzzler, spends way too much on winter oil bills, gets scolding letters from her power company about using more kilowatts than the neighbors, and, other than separating trash from recycling, hasn’t given too much mind-share to the cause.

By contrast, Wirth is a woman who could probably itemize her carbon footprint down to the cubic foot, from the Prius (a plus) parked outside her spacious (a minus) Cambridge home recently retrofitted with efficient LED bulbs (another plus) to her second home (another minus) in Colorado, equipped with solar panels on the property that help offset the energy it takes to fly there and to run the house. By tapping mothers, both apathetic and green true believers, Wirth is hoping to unleash a broad social movement that ultimately evolves into a national force - similar to what journalist-turned-activist Bill McKibben’s 350.org has done with college students, this time with moms.

Forget the polar bears. This is about human mamas protecting their cubs. “We are not an environmental organization,” says Wirth, curled up in her sun-lit kitchen in jeans and a gray sweater, colorful kids’ artwork plastering the walls. “The earth is not our symbol. It’s not about the planet, per se. It’s about our kids. Our goal is to make climate change an issue that mothers care about because they are concerned about their kids’ future.”