Late on the night of December 2, 19841, massive amounts of methyl isocyanate gas (500 times more poisonous than cyanide) leaked from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, immediately killing at least 2,000 people1 and causing significant illness and premature death to many more. Union Carbide Corporation “UCC” immediately tried to distance itself from legal responsibility, in what would become the worst industrial accident in history at that time. Eventually it reached a settlement with the Indian Government and paid $470 million2 in compensation, a relatively very small amount, based on significant severity of the long-term health consequences of exposure and the number of people exposed. The disaster indicated a need for stricter international standards for environmental safety and industrial disaster preparedness. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the ethical issues raised with respect to the different active and passive agents who were involved in this disaster. …show more content…
A small portion of the students was of the opinion that the parent company UCC have not acted unethically as the day to day operations was managed by the Indian subsidiary. Dow Chemical since it purchased UCC after approx. 17 years3 from the tragedy was not legally accountable and some students were of the opinion that they should not be morally and ethically responsible too. I have a similar opinion with respect to UCIL and Indian Government, but I believe that UCC and Dow Chemical have also acted
Due to political aspirations, government bureaucracy, and greed 111 men lost their lives and devastated the lives of loved ones and a community. While, I believe that it was collection of people who is to blame for the explosion one person who could have really avoided this situation was Robert M. Medill and his assistant Robert Weir. Robert Medill, Director of the Illinois of Bureau of Mines and Minerals, was a man filled with greed and power and did nearly nothing to fix the hazardous condition in Centralia. Medill department were very aware of the dangerous conditions at the mine but ignored requests to correct violations. Instead, Medill and Weir’s handling of the inspection reports and other communications were not conducive to clearing
In the midst of that catastrophe, many people took their own lives so they wouldn’t have to face conflict afterwards. This shows why many people think a conflict will never have a positive outcome.
These two literary works, 40 Hours in Hell by Katherine Finkelstein and Third World by Dexter Filkins, both present diverse perspectives on what occurred during the World Trade Center attack. Although both texts approach the coverage of this attack differently, as reporters, they both base their news using normative theory. Normative theory is the consideration of what is morally correct or incorrect. In relation to normative theory is the Social Responsibility Theory. This theory deals with how an individual must complete their civic duty, since they are apart of the press, as well as their actions must benefit society. Nonetheless, of these two texts, 40 Hours in Hell best fulfills the requisites of the Social Responsibility Theory.
decision-making process leading to the launch. Viewing the Challenger disaster as an ethical problem would lead to an effort to determine whether the decision to launch was "right" or "wrong." Clearly, the explosion was an accident. It was an accident that might have been prevented or anticipated but the decision to launch was clearly a matter of judgment--albeit of apparently poor judgment in retrospect--rather than...
On January 9th, 2014, it was reported that a chemical spill had occurred in a storage tank owned by Freedom Industries. The spill occurred on the banks of the Elk River in West Virginia, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without tap water. The company first reported that 7500 gallons of the chemicals had spilled into the river through a one-inch hole but found that two weeks later, there was an estimated 10,000 gallons of the toxic chemical in the river. The chemicals released include 4-methylcyclohexane (MCHM) and PPH. Methylcyclohexane is a chemical that is used in coal to reduce the amount of ash it produces (Field & Catherine, 2014).
The ethical dilemma I will discuss is one that affected me, my relationship with my colleagues, my customers, and my employer. This dilemma was not easy to resolve because of the number of lives that were affected. ...
These ethical issues were focused on PG&E and their employees. It seems this group of individuals did anything to get by, including an employee who cleaned the tanks at PG&E while continuing to have severe nose bleeds. Additionally, PG&E did not care for others; otherwise they would have changed their policies to stop the use of harmful chemicals. The only employee seemingly willing to come forward was a man named Charles Embry, who approached Erin toward the end of her investigation. He was instrumental in this law suit because he had saved documents that PG&E had requested he destroy, because he knew it was unethical to destroy the evidence of harmful chemicals, calling himself a “bad employee” in his own words for his actions. He watched his cousin pass away at only 41 years old, after suffering nose bleeds while cleaning the cooling towers, having his colon and intestines removed, and ultimately dying from kidney tumors. Charles Embry clearly cared about others, the greatest good for the greatest number, and was willing to go against his manager’s direction, to do as he was told (Banaji, 2003, pp. 6-7), and therefore far more ethical than his managers at
The chooses motivational theories by the company Lockheed Martin with regard to successful they might be in promoting worker acceptance of the upcoming transforms
It was clear that the governments in America would not issue a permit to Union Carbide plant under such circumstances, which lacked severe environmental standards and permitted slum dwellers to live near the plant and so on. Such actions were the ones that led to more deaths. Before the major gas leakage from the MCI unit on December 3, 1984, some people were killed because of phosgene gas leakage. However, no one took it seriously, despite the media report. One of the reasons that people ignore this was because people didnt know the potential danger of the chemical plant.
Steve Condie’s 2004 docudrama, One Night in Bhopal is about the Indian gas tragedy which occurred in 1984. Like many other documentaries, Condie presents his particular interpretation of the event and manipulates audiences to view the gas leak accident as an avoidable disaster, which could’ve been averted by the Union Carbide America. My own unique, however, was shaped by factors personal to me and my way of understanding the world. Amongst these were my belief in the appropriate role of money in society, my psychological tendency to emphasise with the sick and my persistent nature.
Executive summary: the information presented below is the case study for The American Red Cross association. The organisation operates on its own and is supported by donations from people. Its main objective is to provide alleviation to those suffering from natural disasters such as earthquakes, flood, tsunami and other natural calamities. The organisation on an average, responds to about 70,000 disasters in one year, across the globe. There was massive criticism for the association for the route they took to care of the attacks on September 11, 2001 including the Hurricane in 2005. The allegations were ineffective and bad management, be that as it may, and the organisation has additionally tended to claims
The Minamata Bay incident also known as the Minamata disease was the largest and most tragic case of industrial pollution to be recorded in history. In the late 1950’s, the consequences of dumping methylmercury into the ocean from the formation of acetaldehyde was not taken into account by the Japanese authorities of the Chisso Corporation chemical factory at that time. As a result, the methylmercury infected water was taken up by the marine life and caused major food poisoning when consumed by the Japanese people ranging from serious neurological diseases (Yorifuji et al., 2008), speech impairment and in some cases, death. The severity of the disease took its toll of up to thousands of innocent civilians and as a form of compensation, the officials responsible for the outbreak offered payments to the grief stricken families who were victims of the horrendous disease. The epidemic came into motion again in 1965, this time in the Agano River basin in Niigata causing the same symptoms as the previous outbreak but this time, the numbers of civilians affected were reduced greatly. It was recently reported in March 2001 that the official death toll of the disease was 1,785 with Chisso Corporation compensated $86 million for the families who were affected by the disease. In May 2006, a memorial service was held to mark 50 years of the discovery and the past left behind of the Minamata disease.
The standards of ethics serve as guidelines for the conduct of individuals and businesses alike. Uzi Nissan acted h...
Ethical dilemmas create a challenge between two or more equally alternative problems requiring moral judgment. This creates both an obligation and dilemma for those involved. Living in such a globalized world with cross-cultural borders, races, and ideas; negotiating what is considered morally “right” can sometimes be very difficult. Both religion and laws have a major impact in ethical duties. What an individual may presume as right cannot be guaranteed by the government or political party. The Overcrowded Lifeboat is just one example in which all the ideas above come to play in ethical decisions.
The Bhopal disaster, also known as the ‘Bhopal Gas Tragedy’, was a gas leak incident in India, considered as the world’s worst industrial disaster. This industrial disaster not only causing air pollution, it is also responsible for loss of lives.