Sustainability is an idea whose time is here and now. In a nutshell, sustainable living encompasses everything, from making small changes like walking instead of driving, to converting your old farmhouse to solar energy. I'll be writing about sustainability in ways we can use it in our lives here in Orange County. Here are 10 suggestions to live more sustainably.

1. Replace every incandescent light bulb in your home with a compact fluorescent today. If all the households in America did this, we would save 25 percent of our energy consumption and be able to close down one-third of the coal-burning plants, according to Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
2. Eat locally, and in season. Produce bought at the supermarket has traveled an average of 1,000 miles to land in your shopping cart. For every pint of strawberries you buy, hundreds of gallons of fuel was used to get it to you.
3. Buy organic. Organic farming uses less water, less land and fewer resources to produce more nutritious crops without fertilizer running off into the Moodna Creek or Wallkill River. When you buy organic, you pay the real cost of food, and that includes a livable wage for farm workers.
4. Reduce, reuse, recycle. We need to focus on "zero waste" and making recycling, composting, washing and reusing plastics a household practice. Less than 10 percent of the enormous mountain of plastic used in this country is recycled.
5. Simplify. Combine errands to reduce car trips. Drive less, bicycle more and voluntarily reduce the amount of fossil fuels burned while improving your health and saving pennies, too.
6. Eat less meat. Brown, of the Earth Policy Institute, estimates that if Americans were to reduce their consumption of meat by only 10 percent, more than 12 million tons of grain annually could be used for feeding people. This amount of grain could feed 60 million people
7. Counter your carbon. If you really want to close down Indian Point, then support green energy sources by buying your energy from wind providers.
8. Buy local. For every $50 you spend at the new Barnes & Nobles in Newburgh, $13 is circulated locally. For every $50 you spend at M&M Used Books in Walden, $47 is circulated locally, according to Melissa Everett of Sustainable Hudson Valley. We all benefit by keeping our money flowing in our villages.
9. Join a group. It's easy to think we're just too busy for civic activities. As a result, our volunteer fire and ambulance corps are having a hard time. Many of us live isolated lives and don't even know our own neighbors. The purpose is to create community, which is what we all love about our villages.
10. Incorporate environmental awareness into your family lifestyle. Teach your children how to respect the Earth, and use your political power to influence policymakers to be more eco-friendly.

Shawn Dell Joyce, an artist and activist who lives in Montgomery, can be reached at shawn@shawndelljoyce.com

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