Wow 40 years. Congratulations Earth Day! In some areas like air and water, there has been great progress. Hey even kids can now safely swim in the Hudson and Nashua Rivers. And it takes fewer shots before you can swim in the Charles between Boston and Cambridge..

Last year I did the Earth Day meme which was to come up with three things that you can do to be more environmentally friendly. The first was something that's small, and easy to do. The second was more ambitious - something you'll try to do, but might not manage to pull off. The third was something you can do to improve something you're already doing.

Last year I wrote:

Small and easy: Only buying environmentally friendly cleaning products.
More ambitious: Fly less and/or figure out some way to reduce the impact of my flying.
Improve something already doing: I did an ok job hanging clothes out on the line last summer; I'll start doing that earlier this year (like now) and will check the weather before I do laundry.

How did I do?- I give myself a B on small and easy. I tried to give up my Ivory dishwashing liquid but the others have very few suds and I like suds. I get an F on more ambitious -- we're flying more than ever but a B on Improve something. I started hanging the clothes outside on the line the first week of April (not bad for MA).

Now I have to figure out what my answers will be for this year. .