Disasters Class: Assignment 3
Note: This post represents a live-blogging experiment in class. I put up the prompt during class and students worked in teams of 2 to come up with an argument, for which they got online and IRL feedback from me and other students, before posting their final collaborative essays.
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Last class we ended by discussing Nader’s and Carson’s insights together. We came up with the idea that sometimes culture, government, and industry are in a causality loop and that infrastructure, perhaps counterintuitively, cannot be effectively planned, but can only respond to problems and disasters–“real life testing” in a sense. But, this idea is not really going to work for the Bhopal disaster. Think about how to create a new insight that has explanatory meaning for Bhopal.
How does the Bhopal disaster differ from the environmental and public health disasters described by Ralph Nader and Rachel Carson? In your answer, have a clear argument and address how infrastructure and government play a role. The key here is to come up with a new insight, being mindful of what we’ve already gone over during last class. It may help to begin with clearly, concisely defining and characterizing each specific “disaster” Nader and Carson brought to light, and then move on to discussing Bhopal. Try to keep it to no more than 3 paragraphs.
Work in groups of 2 and post a first comment that clearly states your argument in no more than 1 to 2 sentences. If your argument is replicated by someone else’s group, both groups will have to change their arguments, to make it less obvious and more original. In order to share your arguments and posts, I will approve the comments in real time. Once your argument is approved verbally or online by me, you will do a finalized comment with your whole essay. The deadline on the syllabus still applies. Be sure that your single comment has both of your wordpress handles on it so I know who worked on which entry.
Infastructure in the nader and carson case came after the disaster on society while the case in india had infastructure but economically couldnt impliment it to aviod the disaster.
Good job, Nick^2. Let’s ask your classmates to take a look and see if they understand your argument enough to help you tighten is up a bit/restate is more clearly.
goverment needs to impliment infustructre strictly and the business needs follow the guidelnes put in place. If the business fails the government needs to be responsible to maintain their public safety.
Nick and Nick, I’m a little bit confused, on relooking your argument, because it almost seems like the reverse to me–that Nader and Carson are looking at situations where the disaster is a byproduct of infrastructure, and Bhopal is a result of a lack of infrastructure? What do you think? Can you clarify what you meant if you disagree with what I’ve said?
Infustructure and being econimally stable directly relate when governments are interveining in industry to ensure public safety. Nader and carson arguments were economically stable to impliment infusructure but were not forced to while india had infustructure but not stable enough to support maintnance.
Good–looking forward to the essay.
GabrielN.
Depending on the severity and timescale of a disaster, the liable party is either blamed or blaming another party.
Good. Would it be fair to say that disasters with longer timescales tend to allow for victims to be blamed more? Or would you say the opposite? What can you do to your argument to give us a clearer sense of how severity and timescale helps us see who is likely to be blamed?
The more severe and short a disaster is, the more likely the blame is placed upon someone/something else. However if a disaster is longer and more drawn out, the blame is more likely to be ignored.
Anthony Cutuli, Eduard Glantsman
The biggest difference in the Bhopal incident from those described by Nader and Carson is that, in this case, no one wants to admit liability or take responsibility. The Bhopal plant is still a disaster area and neither the Indian government, nor any of the chemical companies that have owned the site have bothered to clean it effectively.
In the former cases, the responsibility to solve the situation was taken by the US legislature, which demanded regulation in the industries which were causing the problems. The issue with Bhopal rests in the fact that neither the government nor Union Carbide acted to clean up the site. They took peripheral measures to provide relief, but the actual chemical spill was never addressed.
Additionally, in the Nader and Carson events, the industries under scrutiny were faced with the potential of commercial consequences in addition to governmental regulation. Union Carbide did not suffer in terms of sales from the loss of business in India and thus was not pressured to resolve the issue by investing into it. Essentially, the societal implications were irrelevant for the industry.
Excellent, this is a good start to your essay. I’d like you to synthesize your argument clearly in one sentence before proceeding though.
The Bhopal incident shows how if societal implications are not felt by industry, then government regulation will be less meaningful. Essentially, if there is no commercial consequence to the industry there will not be any resolutions to problems and disasters.
Good–looking forward to the essay and evidence/specifics.
Infrastructure must be put in place to prevent as well as to be able to quickly react and adjust to a wide array of disastrous situations.
The disasters of Nader and Carson were progressive disasters that infrastructure was put in place to keep disaster from becoming worse. Whereas in the event of Bhopal the disaster had reached its ultimate magnitude in an instant and the infrastructure was now needed to rectify and prevent more damage from occurring. Infrastructure must be put in place to prevent as well as to be able to quickly react and adjust to disastrous situations.
Good, now let’s take out the passive voice–who or what must put infrastructure into place? Who or what must react? Whose responsibility is all of this planning?
Edit–great, your second version is much better–move on to the essay writing and see if it evolves further in the process as you add specific evidence.
The Bhopal disaster differed from the previous environment and public health disasters described by being a product of sabotage rather than an oversight or mindfulness on account of the corporation. Should the company have planned for tampering, perhaps by placing additional guards to keep this chemical reaction from occurring, this disaster could have been avoided.
Ok– proceed with your essay, keeping in mind the point we talked about: do not rely only on Union Carbide’s side of the story in order to come to your narrative and analysis of the events.
In Bhopal, the model of infrastructure development would not work due to a nonexistent relationship between industry and government.
Good– when you write the essay, make clear what you mean by “the model of infrastructure development”–I think I know what you mean but it’s a bit telegraphic.
The complex relationships existing between the public, government, and industry of a society define and drive the progress of that society. The government is responsible for encouraging industrial growth while restraining harmful practices to protect the welfare and interests of the public. With this system, disastrous events often occur as the result of insufficient, misdirected, or ignored governmental regulation. Further development and protection from repeated disasters is accomplished by learning from these disasters and adding what is learned to existing knowledge. The 1984 gas leak at the Union Carbide facility in Bhopal, India does not conform to this system of development as a trial-and-error process, as the circumstances of the event varied greatly from other disasters. In Bhopal, the model of reactionary infrastructure development does not work due to a virtually nonexistent relationship between the local government and industry.
With other historical disasters, we see a failure in some part of the public-government-industry system. The difference with other disasters is that usually these failures are the result of an oversight or intentional disregard of regulation. The important part of this is that there is regulation prior to the disaster, but it is unable to handle particular circumstances. Ralph Nader’s fight against disastrously lax regulation of the automobile industry involved strengthening safety requirements and establishing sanctions for breaking those regulations. The lessons learned from this disaster were integrated into and built upon the existing body of knowledge concerning vehicle safety. Likewise, in the aftermath of the overuse of DDT, Rachel Carson’s work on Silent Spring helped publicize the over spraying of DDT and bring about public attention to the issue. Governmental regulation and policies are what allowed the spraying of DDT in the first place, so to remedy the issue the regulations and policies were updated and adjusted to reflect a better understanding of the dangers associated with the chemical. Both of these cases describe a scenario where oversight and insufficient regulation created problems, but both also involved the participation of the public, government, and industry. The Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal is unique in that the large break in communication between industry and the government helped foster a situation where both parties were unable to synergistically avoid a catastrophe.
A lack of communication and collaboration between Bhopal’s government and Union Carbide is clear now, as a quick look back reveals no policies or plans in place for the possibility of an accident at the Union Carbide facility. Typically, there are strict regulations in place governing the practices and response plans for a company that operates dangerous facilities near residential areas. In Bhopal, there were no response plans and worse yet, there is little evidence that the government put forth any effort into determining the risks that the plant would bring to the surrounding community. The leak of the gaseous methyl isocyanate occurred in December of 1984, and not until March of the following year did Union Carbide conduct testing into the effects of overexposure to the gas. The confusion and isolation of the government and Union Carbide continued in the aftermath of the leak, with both groups conducting separate investigations and relief efforts. The Indian government largely rejected offers of assistance from Union Carbide, likely due to mistrust over the accident itself. Furthermore, the rejection of aid efforts could have been due to a fear of being denied a fully rightful settlement. Often, accepting an offer from a liable party can make it harder to collect even more compensations later. While this may have meant being more fully reimbursed for the suffering caused by the accident later, but this came at the cost of immediate relief for those affected. If the government of India had collaborated from the beginning with Union Carbide, there would have been less strife handling the relief effort. Overall, the relationship between Union Carbide and the Bhopal government was, before and after the gas leak, was insufficient to help avert or mitigate the damages from the accident and unable to build upon infrastructure the way other disasters can.
Unlike in the cases of Nader and Carson, in the Bhopal incident safety measures were previously researched and put in place to prevent a disaster. Though safety precautions were in place, because of oversight they ended up in a similar situation to the Nader and Carson stories; thus proving that infrastructure can only be planned up until a certain point. Real world data gathered past this point is then necessary to allow for a more robust infrastructure.
Excellent. but I would like you to reconsider the validity of your last sentence as it specifically applies to Bhopal as you write your essay. you may find you need to revise your argument a bit as you add in details and evidence to support it.
In the case of Silent Spring and Unsafe at Any Speed, social change was driven by fear of perpetuation of the disasters due to fundamental errors in infrastructure and lack of governmental regulation. While, the Bhopal Disaster did not elicit a social change, but rather, resulted in an immense attempt to compensate for the tragedy and a need to assign blame.
Great– as you write your comment try to work the WHY of what’s going on into your argument.
The idea of infrastructure does not necessarily matter, despite its presence in Bhopal and lack of in Nader and Carson, unless outside resources are there to ensure the needs are met. This is when the differences of government roles shape the need for infrastructure.
I’m a bit confused–It seems to me that infrastructure is definitely present in the case of Nader and Carson–can you clarify what you mean here? Then move on to your essay.
When comparing the disaster in Bhopal to those described by Carson and Nader it is important to understand the general ideas discussed by Carson and Nader. In both cases there was some sort of issue that the industry just covered up or made ill attempts to repair until they were forced to do so by the government. In Bhopal there were some similarities with reports of spills prior to 1984 which were killing off livestock that Union Carbide covered up or paid off, but in other ways they were more prepared for the disaster to come than in the Carson and Nader events. Unlike in the cases of Nader and Carson, however, the Bhopal incident safety measures were previously researched and put in place to prevent a disaster. Though safety precautions were in place, because of oversight they ended up in a similar situation to the Nader and Carson stories; thus proving that infrastructure can only be planned up until a certain point. Though Bhopal did not change after the 1984 disaster, real world data from a prior event may have allowed them to form a more robust infrastructure.
Nader’s book Unsafe at Any Speed and Carson’s Silent Springs both exposed the negligence of big corporations in regards to researching the technologies they were promoting. They also had poor planning for their infrastructures, ultimately causing harm to the general populace, either through an increase in car accidents and pollution, or the destruction of the natural fauna and people in areas sprayed with pesticides. The incident at Bhopal, however, did not completely follow in these footsteps when developing the infrastructure for the chemical plant. While all three corporations did try to cover up the mistakes and issues that were causing harm to their customers (either due to the company’s culture or the fact that it was cheaper to pay settlements from lawsuits instead of completely correcting the problem), Bhopal stands out; some type of infrastructure and fail safes were actually researched and developed to prevent a major chemical spill. Though Bhopal had “planned” for the worst case scenario, there were still some oversights that allowed for the 1984 disaster to occur. For example, the chemical plant had a water curtain to prevent gas releases, vent gas scrubber to clean released gas, a flare tower to burn off toxic gas, and a refrigeration system to keep the storage tanks at a safe temperature. An overall oversight by the company led to all of this equipment being out of operation either for maintenance or for some other reason they saw fit. This overall oversight for safety systems combined with the unusual event that water made its way into the storage tanks causing a runaway reaction was what ultimately led to the 1984 release of toxic gas.
When looking at all three cases, Bhopal, Nader, and Carson, there was some sort of oversight which led to unintentional consequences. The difference with the oversight in Bhopal is where it occurred. Nader and Carson both told stories of complete oversight when it came to the safety of the consumer as well as the general public. In Bhopal, they had the necessary safety measures in place in order to prevent any possible circumstances in their mind, but oversight in the use of these safety measures eventually led to the toxic release of gasses in 1984.
Magni Hammarstedt
Disasters occur as we all know, and they come in two different types: short and severe, or long
and drawn out. Both of these disasters have their own unique styles of placing the blame. For the
longer more drawn out disasters the blame is more likely to be completely ignored, however if the
disaster is shorter and more severe the blame is more likely to be placed upon another party.
The Bhopal gas leak occurred in one night, a very short time indeed, and it was one of the worst
chemical accidents in history. It killed close to ten thousand men, women, children, and livestock in a
single night. What is the most amazing about this instance though is that Union Carbide did nothing to
help alleviate the people of Bhopal. Union Carbide decided that since they did not own the factory
anymore they were not at blame for the disaster and instead it was a good idea to blame the locals who
were supposed to be maintaining the plant. Were these locals to blame? No of course not. All of the
blame is directed at U.C. but they can’t be blamed for such a large disaster because it might hurt their
profits, and they certainly cannot afford to help clean up. The best way to avoid all blame is to blame
someone else entirely.
The disasters argued by Carson and Nader in their books Silent Springs and Unsafe at Any Speed were not as severe and instantaneous as the Bhopal gas leak of 1984 but blame was still placed on the responsible parties. The difference was that companies and individuals were not using scapegoats to avoid liability of the disaster and the aftermath. Instead, they tried to discredit and publicly attack individuals like Rachel Carson and Ralph Nader who were concerned enough to research and surface the public health problems caused by the overuse of DDT and the failure to recognize and act upon defective car designs by car companies. The Bhopal disaster was both lethal and instantaneous, blame was quickly placed on Union Carbide but as time passed on, the aftermath began to be ignored by all parties. Even to this day people are being affected in Bhopal and there is never enough money or care from the government, Union Carbide, etc to help treat the sick and clean up the residual poisonous chemicals.
The complex relationships existing between the public, government, and industry of a society define and drive the progress of that society. The government is responsible for encouraging industrial growth while restraining harmful practices to protect the welfare and interests of the public. With this system, disastrous events often occur as the result of insufficient, misdirected, or ignored governmental regulation. Further development and protection from repeated disasters is accomplished by learning from these disasters and adding what is learned to existing knowledge. The 1984 gas leak at the Union Carbide facility in Bhopal, India does not conform to this system of development as a trial-and-error process, as the circumstances of the event varied greatly from other disasters. In Bhopal, the model of reactionary infrastructure development does not work due to a virtually nonexistent relationship between the local government and industry.
With other historical disasters, we see a failure in some part of the public-government-industry system. The difference with other disasters is that usually these failures are the result of an oversight or intentional disregard of regulation. The important part of this is that there is regulation prior to the disaster, but it is unable to handle particular circumstances. Ralph Nader’s fight against disastrously lax regulation of the automobile industry involved strengthening safety requirements and establishing sanctions for breaking those regulations. The lessons learned from this disaster were integrated into and built upon the existing body of knowledge concerning vehicle safety. Likewise, in the aftermath of the overuse of DDT, Rachel Carson’s work on Silent Spring helped publicize the over-spraying of DDT and bring about public attention to the issue. Governmental regulation and policies are what allowed the spraying of DDT in the first place, so to remedy the issue the regulations and policies were updated and adjusted to reflect a better understanding of the dangers associated with the chemical. Both of these cases describe a scenario where oversight and insufficient regulation created problems, but both also involved the participation of the public, government, and industry. The Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal is unique in that the large break in communication between industry and the government helped foster a situation where both parties were unable to collaboratively avoid a catastrophe.
A lack of communication and synergy between Bhopal’s government and Union Carbide is clear now, as a quick look back reveals no policies or plans in place for the possibility of an accident at the Union Carbide facility. Typically, there are strict regulations in place governing the practices and response plans for a company that operates dangerous facilities near residential areas. In Bhopal, there were no response plans and worse yet, there is little evidence that the government put forth any effort into determining the risks that the plant would bring to the surrounding community. The leak of the gaseous methyl isocyanate occurred in December of 1984, and not until March of the following year did Union Carbide conduct testing into the effects of overexposure to the gas. The confusion and isolation of the government and Union Carbide continued in the aftermath of the leak, with both groups conducting separate investigations and relief efforts. The Indian government largely rejected offers of assistance from Union Carbide, likely due to mistrust over the accident itself. The rejection of aid efforts could have been due to a fear of being denied a full settlement. Often, accepting an offer from a liable party can make it harder to collect more later. While this may have meant being more fully reimbursed for the suffering caused by the accident later, this came at the cost of immediate relief for those affected. If there had been a better relationship between government and Union Carbide, there would certainly have been less strife handling the relief effort. Overall, the relationship between Union Carbide and the Bhopal government was, before and after the gas leak, insufficient to help avert or mitigate the damages from the accident and unable to build upon infrastructure the way other disasters can.
The fundamental difference between the environmental and public safety disasters described by Ralph Nader and Rachel Carson, and the Bhopal Disaster stems from how each situation was responded to and viewed by the public. In the case of Silent Spring and Unsafe at Any Speed, social change was driven by fear. These disasters would continue to plague the public if their simple causes continued to go overlooked. People would continue to die. In the case of Bhopal, the disaster occurred once with great magnitude as opposed to over time in small doses. Therefore it couldn’t be stopped, only prevented or reacted to. This large scale disaster was stigmatized as a “one time” awful occurrence, where reoccurrence was unlikely. This resulted in less public fear and more public sympathy and corporate compensation over government regulation.
Cars and the environment were nearly impossible to avoid in 1950s-1960s. The disasters described by Nader and Carson were constantly occurring and could harm anyone at any time. Nader’s book brought to light the fact that no level of personal driving expertise could save one from a poorly designed and poorly manufactured vehicle-death-trap. While Carson brought the general public knowledge regarding the dangers of excessive pesticide use and its disruption of both animal and human life. These two very real and largely unavoidable factors begged for organizational regulation (that organization being the government), since the general public was helpless in eliciting a social change without it. Eventually, both Nader’s and Carson’s efforts brought forth a powerful and lasting change. Instead of attempting to point fingers and assign blame, these individuals pointed out dangers and possible solutions.
The Bhopal Disaster did not elicit a social change, but rather, resulted in an immense attempt to compensate for the tragedy and a need to assign blame. The exact cause for this disaster is still somewhat a mystery. One investigation claims that the only possible explanation for the disaster is sabotage. The investigators claim that safety measures were put in place to prevent water from getting into the MIC storage tank and that it could only get there if it were put there on purpose. However, other investigations claim that while safety measures were present, they were not used or properly maintained, resulting in an accident of disastrous proportions. Because the causal mechanisms were unknown it was more difficult for a fundamental change to take place. Instead of this disaster resulting in a societal change prompted by government regulation, it resulted in Union Carbide’s attempted compensation and blame refusal.
Sources—Class reading excerpts
Eduard Glantsman & Anthony Cutuli
The Bhopal incident shows how if societal implications are not felt by industry, then government regulation will be less meaningful. Essentially, if there is no commercial consequence to the industry there will not be any resolutions to problems and disasters.
The biggest difference in the Bhopal incident from those described by Nader and Carson is that, in this case, no one wants to admit liability or take responsibility. The Bhopal plant is still a disaster area and neither the Indian government, nor any of the chemical companies that have owned the site have bothered to clean it effectively. In the former cases, the responsibility to solve the situation was taken by the US legistlature, which demanded regulation in the industries which were causing the problems. These industries were forced to change and accommodate growing public concern. The issue with Bhopal rests in the fact that neither the government nor Union Carbide acted to clean up the site. They took peripheral measures to provide relief, but the actual chemical spill was never addressed.
Additionally, in Nader and Caron’s events, the industries under scrutiny were faced with the potential of losing business in addtion to governmental regulation through the loss of their credibility with the American public. Union Carbide did not suffer in terms of sales from the loss of business in India and thus was not pressured to resolve the issue by investing into it. Essentially, the societal implications were irrelevant for the industry.
The disasters of Nader and Carson were progressive disasters that infrastructure was put in place to keep disaster from becoming worse. Whereas in the event of Bhopal the disaster had reached its ultimate magnitude in an instant and the infrastructure was now needed to rectify and prevent more damage from occurring. Infrastructure must be put in place to prevent as well as to be able to quickly react and adjust to disastrous situations.
Carson and Nader dealt with progressive issues that were safety hazards but had not reach disaster, while Bhopal reached its maximum and required swift action that was not given. The Indian Government reacted slowly taking five years to deliver the decision in court against Union Carbide, this resulted in multiple years of additional suffering. Cleanup of the chemicals is still ongoing and the symptoms have reached multiple generations of people. Carson and Nader’s issues were of a lesser magnitude but reaction was put in place more swiftly.
The trial in India of Union Carbide took nearly five years which ruled 470 million paid in damages to the people of Bhopal and convicted of the CEO of manslaughter but the ruling was too late, while the money has been paid the CEO has avoided charges since he will not stand trial in India. Union Carbide managed to sell off its shares in companies and eliminate its ties to Bhopal so the government of India has been left to pick up the pieces.
On December 2, 1984, methyl-isocyanate gas was found to be leaking out of a tank in a pesticide plant in Bhopal India. This leak, 40 tons in total, was the cause of the deaths of around 3800 people and severe health consequences. At the end of the disaster, the company that owned the pesticide plant, the Union Carbide Corporation, immediately tried to divert blame from themselves and shift the blame towards the Indian infrastructure through claims of having everything built according to their standards. This then shifts the perspective of the Bhopal disaster to seem more like an unfortunate accident leaving an avoidance of blame in the aftermath and failure of Indian infrastructure, whereas comparisons to the events catalogued by Rachel Carson’s Silent Springs and Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed characterize entities such as corporations having been willingly negligent to issues due to a work around in the United States government’s weak or no infrastructure.
It is almost as if the UCC actually has an excuse in this case as the plant involved in the accident had supposedly been built up to specifications and therefore making them not completely technically liable, whereas GM Motors for example, knew about the dangers in their automobiles and due to a lack of system set in place, felt no responsibility to inform their consumers about potential life-threatening. In the case of the UCC however, reparations were distributed to the Indian government in an attempt to make up for what had happened. Unfortunately, GM Motors did very little to compensate for those killed and maimed in their automobiles. Rather than make an announcement and mass recall the affected product, something that would be found in today’s infrastructure, the lack of rules in place made it so that GM did not have to do anything at all. It is actually rather surprising that a repair kit was made for the automobiles that were originally unsafe. Yet, in order to get these repair kits, autoshops would have to buy the kit first and then repair the car, which usually left the person who owned the car stuck without one. As for another example, there were accusations that took place during the investigation that someone added water to the gas tank at the UCC plant, which is what caused a pressure build up in the tank and eventually the leak. This was a known accidental case, which is why the tanks were built to keep water out in the first place. In comparison, no one really knew what the long term effects of spraying DDT were and it wasn’t until later on that the myths and truths of those effects were revealed. These two cases almost switch things up as one disaster had known consequences and regulations for the prevention of those consequences, and the other involved the use of a chemical on the environment and people without good enough regulations and safety standards. It is also very interesting to note that the company who did things correctly was punished more strongly in the long run, however, this can be attributed to consequences stemming from new regulations.
It is important to note that with more regulations, infrastructure and consequences become increasingly severe, whether good or bad, and force companies to take responsibility for their actions. As was the case for the UCC, they had to take responsibility with more infrastructure, whereas GM Motors and the US government got off easy with a lack of infrastructure.