How long is a “long” answer?  Well, it’s not a single word, phrase, or sentence; these would be “short” answers.  Aim for one substantive paragraph.  Maybe two.  Your answers should be factual, orderly, and cautious as if you — as an officer of an environmental policy agency or public health department — were being asked to illuminate a problem thoughtfully posed during a legislative hearing or expert-panel news conference.  Understand whatever you write before you write it.  No dissembling, no fluff, no techno-babble, no introductions, no breezy summaries.  Please don’t use words that are not your own to imply that they are your own, but, on the other hand, don’t write as you would for a research paper.  Be direct.  Be useful.  Answer the questions.  Then stop writing.

1.     Humanity’s plastics era is nowhere near its close, but society’s faith in plastic’s harmlessness and recyclability is fading. How would you advise delegates negotiating a global comprehensive plastics pollution treaty?

2.     When shown to be dangerous to humans, agricultural chemicals in the United States may — eventually — be withdrawn from use. If withdrawn, it may be replaced by a chemical about which much less is known. This pattern is widely acknowledged to be an embarrassment from a public-policy perspective. It is often compared unfavorably with the pattern seen in pharmaceutical regulation, even though American pharmaceutical regulation is itself repeatedly bathed in scandal. How would you reform agricultural-chemical regulation if given a chance to do so in circumstances that are friendly to scientific reasoning?

3.     If they chose to guarantee that their water infrastructure — from intake to output and in whatever weather conditions — no longer contributed to human diseases, either toxicological or infectious, most societies, however modern in numerous respects, would have to rebuild themselves in many ways. What would you advise? Choose a society — a whole country or, better, a particular county or city you know well or have read about —then recommend a logically ordered list of fundamental tasks. Think carefully; read broadly; list briefly.