Air Date: Week of January 4, 2008

Living on Earth takes to the streets to quiz people on their environmental resolutions for 2008.

Transcript

CURWOOD: The first week of 2008 – how are those resolutions going? You know, the ones about the gym, or the diet, or helping out more in the house, or keeping a sunny temper? But some resolutions may be easier to keep than others. And Living On Earth’s Bobby Bascomb went out to check if people on the street in the Boston area had any environmental-friendly resolutions.

WOMAN: My name is Annie and my New Year’s resolution for 2008 is to buy locally.

MAN: So I commute a lot for work and I was thinking of buying a more fuel-efficient car this year. You know, do a small part to cut down on emissions and you know, make the air cleaner.

MAN 2: This year’s New Year’s resolution will be to go completely bio-diesel this year.

WOMAN 2: Hi, my name is Marcia and I’m a kindergarten teacher from California and what I’d like to do for the environment is to teach my kids about the environment. Just the basic things that they need to know.

WOMAN 3: One of my goals for the New Year is to use less plastic. So I’m trying not to use plastic bags in my garbage pales and I just got glass food containers.

MAN 3: My resolution is to get in a better habit of picking trash up on the street and throwing it in trashcans—setting an example.

WOMAN 4: For the New Year I’d like to make sure we turn off more lights in the house and ride our bikes a lot more.

MAN 4: Yeah, my goal for New Year is to try to better communicate to people that global warming is a reality.

WOMAN: My name’s Abby and my New Year’s resolution is to clean up the Charles River.

MAN: My goal for the New Year is to reduce waste, particularly junk mail and things I throw out.

WOMAN: Well our office is trying to reduce our firm-wide carbon footprint so just trying to do my part to print on both sides and recycle where I can and just turn off the lights when it’s not necessary—that sort of thing. So, I think every bit counts.

CURWOOD: So, Bobby was everyone you asked as exemplary as those folks about their environmental resolutions?

BASCOMB: No, not everyone. I definitely talked to some people who said they hadn’t really thought about the environment at all. Some other people said you know, they’re already doing as much as they can so they don’t have anything new to add. But I’d say at least half the people I talked to definitely have New Year’s environmental resolutions.

CURWOOD: Living on Earth’s Bobby Bascomb. Thank you so much.