Nearly 250 cities, towns and villages in New York are changing the way they operate to fight climate change. These municipalities are part of the state’s nine-year-old Climate Smart Communities (CSC) program, which capitalizes on the fact local governments have direct control or major influence on most of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

As we all know, traditional pesticides contain toxic chemicals that are harmful to people and our environment. One of the more interesting sustainable alternatives we recently learned about is the small and colorful ladybug.

With 400 breweries statewide, beer is a big business in the State of New York. However, climate change is already affecting brewers. The Oxford Companion to Beer notes that the price of ingredients is “beginning to rise as the agriculture industry is affected by changing weather patterns.” Some brewers have been fighting climate change for decades.

Permaculture, a compound of the words permanent and agriculture, is about melding sustainable production with sustainable consumption. Environmentalists Bill Mollison and David Holmgren created the concept in their 1978 book “Permaculture One,” as an alternative approach to agriculture and community design and this idea is taking root here in New York’s rural and urban centers

Regenerative agriculture is a farming practice in which plants and the soil that nourishes them take care of each other. This practice brings benefits to our environment by pulling carbon out of the atmosphere into the soil.