Pollution

A year ago today I wrote about the suicide of Sunil Kumar Verma. Sunil was born in Bhopal, India, in 1972. On Dec. 2nd and 3rd, 1984, the negligence of Union Carbide (now part of Dow Chemicals) killed Sunil's parents and five siblings, and left him with ongoing psychological problems. Those psychological problems dogged him for twenty two years, and a year ago today, Sunil hung himself. Meanwhile, those who were responsible for the death of his family have gotten off largely scott free. This one is for Sunil.

What negligence am I talking about? Well, some of our younger readers may not know about Bhopal, one of the most disgusting moments in American corporate colonialism. It was an event that killed some 20,000 people and left over 100,000 affected. And corporate America, responsible for this disaster, has done almost nothing to clean up the mess and take responsibility. Here is a description of what happened from the International Capaign for Justice in Bhopal:

On the night of Dec. 2nd and 3rd, 1984, a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, began leaking 27 tons of the deadly gas methyl isocyanate. None of the six safety systems designed to contain such a leak were operational, allowing the gas to spread throughout the city of Bhopal.[1] Half a million people were exposed to the gas and 20,000 have died to date as a result of their exposure. More than 120,000 people still suffer from ailments caused by the accident and the subsequent pollution at the plant site. These ailments include blindness, extreme difficulty in breathing, and gynecological disorders. The site has never been properly cleaned up and it continues to poison the residents of Bhopal. In 1999, local groundwater and wellwater testing near the site of the accident revealed mercury at levels between 20,000 and 6 million times those expected. Cancer and brain-damage- and birth-defect-causing chemicals were found in the water; trichloroethene, a chemical that has been shown to impair fetal development, was found at levels 50 times higher than EPA safety limits.[2]Testing published in a 2002 report revealed poisons such as 1,3,5 trichlorobenzene, dichloromethane, chloroform, lead and mercury in the breast milk of nursing women.[3] In 2001, Michigan-based chemical corporation Dow Chemical purchased Union Carbide, thereby acquiring its assets and liabilities. However Dow Chemical has steadfastly refused to clean up the site, provide safe drinking water, compensate the victims, or disclose the composition of the gas leak, information that doctors could use to properly treat the victims.

I was surprisingly inspired by John and Teresa Heinz Kerry’s new book, This Moment on Earth, coming out March 26th, 2007. This inspiration snuck up on me around the third chapter. Prior to that, I found the book good, well worth reading, but a little bit like just one more book outlining what humans are doing wrong. Starting around the third chapter I realized I was referring to the book in several conversations and several blog diaries and that several of the people and organizations featured in the book I mentally filed away as worth looking into for future political connections, diaries and general research.

In short, almost without my realizing it, John Kerry’s book was getting into my brain and inspiring me. The book starts a bit dull but by the end is excellent.

My earliest impression, from the press material that arrived with the book and from the introduction, was that this book promised something really new and welcome. The book was billed as the next step in the evolution of the environmental debate. I was ready for a book that took as given the problems and focused primarily on solutions. Having been through way too many “debates” online where I yet again outlined the very clear scientific evidence for global warming only to have yet the same false claims that global warming was some kind of scam or myth (these claims are never backed up by scientific evidence of any substance), I really was ready to have a book that moved beyond that.

The Democratic victory in November has already yielded some very important things. First, Rumsfeld fled the scene faster than you can say "Congressional investigation." The Mainstream media, realizing that Democrats largely won because people are sick of the war and the lies surrounding the war, have finally recognized that Iraq is in the midst of a Civil War largely due to Bush's incompetence.

Now, the Republican campaign to poison America has receieved a set back thanks to the Democratic victory. The EPA is abandoning part of Bush's plan to let polluters poison Americans at will. From Salon.com:

The Bush administration, looking at the prospect of stronger oversight from a Democratic-led Congress, is withdrawing a proposal to let big polluters report less often on what they spew from their smokestacks.

The administration, however, is going ahead with a plan to make one-third less provide detailed figures at all.

The government last year proposed easing air regulations to exempt some companies from having to tell the Environmental Protection Agency about what it considers to be small releases of toxic pollutants.

That proposal is still alive. But abandoned now is the idea of making companies that must make such reports, known as toxic release inventory, do so every other year instead of annually.

Twenty two years after losing his parents and 5 siblings to Union Carbide's criminal negligance at Bhopal, India, activist Sunil Kumar Verma has committed suicide after fighting for years with paranoid schizophrenia an illness which affected many Bhopal survivors.

Meanwhile, Union Carbide and its successor, Dow Chemical, has largely gotten off scott free.

From the International Capaign for Justice in Bhopal:

On the night of Dec. 2nd and 3rd, 1984, a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, began leaking 27 tons of the deadly gas methyl isocyanate. None of the six safety systems designed to contain such a leak were operational, allowing the gas to spread throughout the city of Bhopal.[1] Half a million people were exposed to the gas and 20,000 have died to date as a result of their exposure. More than 120,000 people still suffer from ailments caused by the accident and the subsequent pollution at the plant site. These ailments include blindness, extreme difficulty in breathing, and gynecological disorders. The site has never been properly cleaned up and it continues to poison the residents of Bhopal. In 1999, local groundwater and wellwater testing near the site of the accident revealed mercury at levels between 20,000 and 6 million times those expected. Cancer and brain-damage- and birth-defect-causing chemicals were found in the water; trichloroethene, a chemical that has been shown to impair fetal development, was found at levels 50 times higher than EPA safety limits.[2]Testing published in a 2002 report revealed poisons such as 1,3,5 trichlorobenzene, dichloromethane, chloroform, lead and mercury in the breast milk of nursing women.[3] In 2001, Michigan-based chemical corporation Dow Chemical purchased Union Carbide, thereby acquiring its assets and liabilities. However Dow Chemical has steadfastly refused to clean up the site, provide safe drinking water, compensate the victims, or disclose the composition of the gas leak, information that doctors could use to properly treat the victims.