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Iusually begin my senior-level course on protecting public health and the environment with the following statement: “Think of an environmental policy problem that you are really worried about, that distracts you (maybe keeps you up at night), that you talk about with your family and friends, and that probably brought you to this course.” After a minute, they tell me what these problems are, and I write them on the board. Then I ask, “Why haven’t we fixed these problems ?” Some students seem surprised by the question, and they aim quizzical looks at me. I can feel them asking themselves, “If he’s the expert, why is he asking us?” I start the course this way because even the youngest students have already learned a lot about why we have not fixed the environmental health problems that they fear the most. Most of them have learned from tales, but some have grounding in theories and tools too. This introduction describes the way themes, tales, theories, tools, and tasks (the five T’s) are used in this book to illuminate the six policy criteria, the organization of the volume, and the objectives of each chapter, as well as some of the methods I have used to teach environmental policy. Themes, Tales, Theories, Tools, and Tasks These are my equivalent of the three R’s. Themes are the policy subjects, such as indoor air quality, the use of pesticides on crops, children’s exposure to lead, the stockpile of chemical warfare agents, and nuclear power. My teaching of these subjects has led me to use several out-of-the-ordinary teaching devices. First, I do not provide an absolute answer to policy questions. That is, I do not say that government should do this or that. Instead, I provide clues, and, more specifically, I steer students into weighing the advantages and disadvantages of different decisions. There are tables in chapters  through  that pull together these advantages and disadvantages. Then I organize tasks that require students to debate 1 Introduction A Quick Walk through a Framework of Six Environmental Policy Criteria policy options. I also quote and paraphrase the views of people with whom many scientists, myself included, disagree. I do this because elected officials and their staffs do not readily dismiss the odd, unconventional opinion; they may cling to it because it fits their predilections. Like it or not, the policy process makes room for the unconventional. Tales are stories told about policies orally and in articles, books, newspapers, magazines, government documents, and the so-called gray literature. Like almost everyone else, I derived my first lessons about the environment from listening to tales. It is not by chance that a lot of my work is directly related to vivid memories . Although this book is not a walking tour of my life and feelings, a personal example will make the point about the importance of tales. When I was a child living in New York City, my father impressed me as a fastidious person. It seemed to me that he was always clean shaven and well dressed, and he smelled of cologne. So I was shocked when my father and my grandfather told me about a drought so severe that New York City had shaveless and bathless days. I could not imagine my father smelly and unshaven. I went to the library and found the actual New York Times stories of the drought, including photos of men who had not shaved. The point is that the tale my father and grandfather told me made such an impression that I was primed to try to do something about our poor policy response to drought when the opportunity arose. In class, I go through the exercise of asking my students to share vivid environmental health tales with me. Everyone, I’m certain, has some to share. My students’ interest wanes when I get stingy and do not tell enough tales to prime theme discussions. For example, I remember trying to describe the laws and treaties agreed to by the U.S. government on the destruction of its chemical weapons stockpile. The students were somewhat interested — but only somewhat . Their curiosity increased exponentially when I described how I was required to demonstrate that I could use a gas mask and then had to take the gas mask and three syringes with me before I was allowed to walk into a shed that held chemical weapons. Using tales requires being personal, sometimes...

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