At the close of the UN Summit on Climate Change, diplomats may have left Copenhagen frustrated by the slow pace of progress, but as Yale professor of environmental policy, risk analysis, and political science John Wargo writes in his new book, Green Intelligence, the keys to environmental safety often begin with the actions we take in our own homes.

As Wargo explains in this interview with WNYC’s Leonard Lopate, potentially harmful man-made chemicals surround us, not only when we step out of doors, but often also inside our own homes. Who hasn’t sprayed an aerosol can inside or called an exterminator to control indoor pests? Yet, in doing so, we are often inviting unknown toxins quite literally into our own homes. Plastics, though now more widely understood as a potential chemical danger, seem particularly difficult to avoid. Take, for instance, Wargo’s near-impossible challenge to his students to avoid plastics for a full semester:

For more about Wargo’s research and Green Intelligence, be sure to check out this excellent video produced by Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.