Climate Change Can Be Bad For Your Health: Brooklyn Library Talk

PROSPECT HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — Nurses who may well be among the first witnesses to the effects of climate change will headline a speaker series at Brooklyn Public Library.

They'll take the stage Feb. 12 at the main Brooklyn library branch for the first of four Climate Wednesdays: Solutions for a Cooler Brooklyn.

The spring series is presented by the library and 350Brooklyn, a local affiliate of a global climate-focused organization. Co-leader Mimi Bluestone said nurses turned out to be the ideal speakers for the first talk focused on health.

"So much of the real activism is going on in the health field (is) nurses," she said.

Bluestone said nurses deal with communities living along shrinking shorelines and see the effects of warmer seasons, which amply the spread of infectious disease, prolong the lives of ticks that carry Lyme disease and lengthen pollen season.

The panelists are Dora Acevedo, a pediatric nurse practitioner working in asthma, allergy and pulmonology at Jacobi Medical Center; Lilia Marquez, who is on the New York State Nurses Association board of directors; and Katy McFadden, a neonatal ICU nurse and reproductive justice activist.

Their talk will be moderated by Denise Patel, who has a Master's in public health and serves as program director at Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.

"We want people to have a better understanding of the climate crisis," Bluestone said. "It’s an emergency."

The event will be from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Future talks in the series will be March 18 on transportation, April 15 on green jobs and May 20 on nature's role as an ally in countering climate change.