Bhopal, BP, Ozone, TBL

8/12/2019 Bhopal, BP, Ozone, TBL

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The Bhopal Gas Tragedy

The Bhopal disaster, also referred to as the Bhopal gas tragedy, was a gas leak incident in India,

considered the world's worst industrial disaster. It occurred on the night of 23 December 1984 at the

Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Over 500,000 people

were exposed to methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals. The toxic substance made its way in andaround the shanty towns located near the plant. Estimates vary on the death toll. The official immediate

death toll was 2,259. The government of Madhya Pradesh confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to

the gas release. Others estimate 8,000 died within two weeks and another 8,000 or more have since

died from gas-related diseases. A government affidavit in 2006 stated the leak caused 558,125 injuries

including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling

injuries.

Effects on human health

Respiratory Disorders Irritation to the lungs, causing coughing and/or shortness of breathing.Higher exposure caused build up of fluids (pulmonary edema). Caused Asthama.

Cancer HazardCaused mutation (genetic changes). It caused cancer. Reproductive HazardAssociation between exposure to Methyl Isocyanate and miscarriages. It

may damage the growing fetus.May also affect fertility in men and women.

Traces of many toxins were found in the Brest Milk of mothers and were inturn transmitted tothe recepient babies.

UCIL was the Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), with Indian Government controlled

banks and the Indian public holding a 49.1 percent stake. In 1994, the Supreme Court of India allowedUCC to sell its 50.9 percent interest in UCIL to Eveready Industries India Limited (EIIL), which

subsequently merged with McLeod Russel (India) Ltd. Eveready Industries India, Limited, ended clean-up

on the site in 1998, when it terminated its 99-year lease and turned over control of the site to the state

government of Madhya Pradesh. Dow Chemical Company purchased UCC in 2001, seventeen years after

the disaster.

Civil and criminal cases are pending in the District Court of Bhopal, India, involving UCC and Warren

Anderson, UCC CEO at the time of the disaster. In June 2010, seven ex-employees, including the former

UCIL chairman, were convicted in Bhopal of causing death by negligence and sentenced to two years

imprisonment and a fine of about $2,000 each, the maximum punishment allowed by Indian law. Aneighth former employee was also convicted, but died before the judgement was passed.


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British Petroleum Oil Spill

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the BP oil spill, the BP oil disaster, the Gulf of Mexico

oilspill, and the Macondo blowout) began on 20 April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated

Macondo Prospect. It claimed eleven lives and is considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the

history of the petroleum industry, an estimated 8% to 31% larger in volume than the previously largest,the Ixtoc I oil spill. Following the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, a sea-floor oil

gusher flowed for 87 days, until it was capped on 15 July 2010. The US Government estimated the total

discharge at 4.9 million barrels (210 million US gal; 780,000 m3). After several failed efforts to contain

the flow, the well was declared sealed on 19 September 2010. Some reports indicate the well site

continues to leak.

A massive response ensued to protect beaches, wetlands and estuaries from the spreading oil utilizing

skimmer ships, floating booms, controlled burns and 1.84 million US gallons (7,000 m3) of Corexit oil

dispersant. Due to the months-long spill, along with adverse effects from the response and cleanup

activities, extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats, fishing and tourism industries, and humanhealth problems have continued through 2014. In 2013 it was reported that dolphins and other marine

life continued to die in record numbers with infant dolphins dying at six times the normal rate. In

October 2013, Al Jazeera reported that the gulf ecosystem was "in crisis", citing a decline in seafood

catches, as well as deformities and lesions found in fish. In Louisiana, 4.6 million pounds of oily material

was removed from the beaches in 2013, over double the amount collected in 2012. Oil cleanup crews

worked four days a week on 55 miles of Louisiana shoreline throughout 2013.

In November 2012, BP and the United States Department of Justice settled federal criminal charges with

BP pleading guilty to 11 counts. BP also agreed to four years of government monitoring of its safety

practices and ethics, and the Environmental Protection Agency announced that BP would be temporarily

banned from new contracts with the US government. BP and the Department of Justice agreed to a

record-setting $4.525 billion in fines and other payments but further legal proceedings not expected to

conclude until 2014 are ongoing to determine payouts and fines under the Clean Water Act and the

Natural Resources Damage Assessment. As of February 2013, criminal and civil settlements and

payments to a trust fund had cost the company $42.2 billion.


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Ozone Layer Depletion

The ozone layer sits in the stratosphere approximately 25km above the Earth. It is made up of ozone

gases that act like a blanket to stop too much UV radiation from the sun entering the atmosphere.

As UV radiation hits the Ozone layer the ozone gas absorbs the radiation and turns it into oxygen.

The Ozone layer prevents the harmful UV radiation entering the Earth, which is vital because too

much of these UV rays can cause cancer, cataracts and DNA damage. Small amounts of ozone are

constantly being made by the action of sunlight on oxygen. At the same time, ozone is being broken

down by natural and unnatural processes that lead to ozone depletion. If this process is greater than

the production of ozone then the ozone layer becomes thinner and less effective.

Causes of Ozone Depletion

Ozone depletion occurs when the natural balance between production and destruction of

stratospheric ozone is tipped in favour of destruction.

The destruction of the Ozone layer is caused due to 1 main factor which is:

The release of chemicals which contain chlorine and bromine such as chlorofluorocarbons(CFCs) into the atmosphere by human activity.

CFCs are released into the atmosphere through the use of aerosols and cooling systems infridges. The CFCs released into the atmosphere do not break down and therefore remain

stable within the atmosphere for between 20 and 120 years.

The chlorine contained within these CFCs break down the ozone gases in the ozone layerwhich further increases Ozone depletion.

Emissions of CFCs have accounted for roughly 80% of total stratospheric ozone depletion.Effects of Ozone Depletion

An increase in UV radiation has been linked to an increase in skin cancer which effects fairskinned individuals who are at a greater risk than darker skinned people.

Scientists have proven that 1% depletion in ozone causes a 5% increase in cases of skin cancer,the depletion rate has been 6% since 1970 and therefore the number of cancer cases has

increased rapidly.

UV radiation has also increased the number of cases of cataracts, which affects peoples vision. Immunity to diseases has also been effected due to the increase in UV radiation entering the

atmosphere. The depletion of ozone and increase in UV rays can also lead to DNA damage,which can be catastrophic.

Solutions to Ozone depletion

The ozone hole is here to stay for about 50 years before the ozone levels will start to return to their

normal levels.


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Any ozone that we could artificially add would most likely be destroyed and would not help ourproblem in the long run.

A different approach is to destroy the CFC's when they are in the troposphere with high-powered infrared lasers located on mountainsides.

Another possible plan is to dump about 50,000 tons of ethane or propane into the Antarcticstratosphere each spring. The chemicals would transform active ozone-depleting chlorine into

non-ozone depleting hydrochloride.

However, there are no official plans to try to fix the ozone hole in the Antarctic because wedon't know enough about stratospheric mechanics to do so. By trying to fix the problem we

might make it worse.

Triple Bottom Line

In traditional business accounting, the "bottom line" refers to the sum of revenue minus expenses,

which is either "loss" if negative, or "profit" if positive. The term originated because profit is always

shown as the very "bottom line" on a statement of revenue and expenses. Over the last 50 years,

environmentalists and social justice advocates have struggled to bring a broader definition of

"bottom line" into public consciousness, by introducing full cost accounting. For example, if a

corporation shows a monetary profit, but their metal mine causes thousands of deaths from

pollution, and their copper mine pollutes a river, and the government ends up spending taxpayer

money on health care and river clean-up, how do we perform a full societal cost benefit analysis?

The concept of a triple bottom line (abbreviated as TBL or 3BL) adds two more "bottom lines"; social

and environmental concerns. The three together are often paraphrased as "Profit, People, Planet",

or referred to as "the three pillars"

Bottom Lines

"People"pertains to fair and beneficial business practices toward labour and the community and

region in which a corporation conducts its business. A TBL company conceives a reciprocal social

structure in which the well-being of corporate, labour and other stakeholder interests are

interdependent.

A triple bottom line enterprise seeks to benefit many constituencies, not exploit or endanger any

group of them. The "upstreaming" of a portion of profit from the marketing of finished goods back

to the original producer of raw materials, for example, a farmer in fair trade agricultural practice, is

a common feature. In concrete terms, a TBL business would not use child labour and monitor all

contracted companies for child labour exploitation, would pay fair salaries to its workers, would

maintain a safe work environment and tolerable working hours, and would not otherwise exploit a

community or its labour force. A TBL business also typically seeks to "give back" by contributing to


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the strength and growth of its community with such things as health care and education.

Quantifying this bottom line is relatively new, problematic and often subjective. The Global

Reporting Initiative (GRI) has developed guidelines to enable corporations and NGOs alike to

comparably report on the social impact of a business.

"Planet"(natural capital) refers to sustainable environmental practices. A TBL company endeavorsto benefit the natural order as much as possible or at the least do no harm and minimise

environmental impact. A TBL endeavour reduces its ecological footprint by, among other things,

carefully managing its consumption of energy and non-renewables and reducing manufacturing

waste as well as rendering waste less toxic before disposing of it in a safe and legal manner. "Cradle

to grave" is uppermost in the thoughts of TBL manufacturing businesses, which typically conduct a

life cycle assessment of products to determine what the true environmental cost is from the growth

and harvesting of raw materials to manufacture to distribution to eventual disposal by the end user.

A triple bottom line company does not produce harmful or destructive products such as weapons,

toxic chemicals or batteries containing dangerous heavy metals, for example.

Currently, the cost of disposing of non-degradable or toxic products is borne financially by

governments and environmentally by the residents near the disposal site and elsewhere. In TBL

thinking, an enterprise which produces and markets a product which will create a waste problem

should not be given a free ride by society. It would be more equitable for the business which

manufactures and sells a problematic product to bear part of the cost of its ultimate disposal.

Ecologically destructive practices, such as overfishing or other endangering depletions of resources

are avoided by TBL companies. Often environmental sustainability is the more profitable course for

a business in the long run. Arguments that it costs more to be environmentally sound are often

specious when the course of the business is analyzed over a period of time. Generally, sustainability

reporting metrics are better quantified and standardized for environmental issues than for social

ones. A number of respected reporting institutes and registries exist including the Global Reporting

Initiative, CERES, Institute 4 Sustainability and others.

"Profit" is the economic value created by the organization after deducting the cost of all inputs,

including the cost of the capital tied up. It therefore differs from traditional accounting definitions of

profit. In the original concept, within a sustainability framework, the "profit" aspect needs to be

seen as the real economic benefit enjoyed by the host society. It is the real economic impact the

organization has on its economic environment. This is often confused to be limited to the internal

profit made by a company or organization (which nevertheless remains an essential starting point

for the computation). Therefore, an original TBL approach cannot be interpreted as simplytraditional corporate accounting profit plus social and environmental impacts unless the "profits" of

other entities are included as a social benefit.

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Bhopal, BP, Ozone, TBL