Read, and write a 1-page reaction on a single topic 400 WORD or more WITH YOUR o
ID: 399701 • Letter: R
Question
Read, and write a 1-page reaction on a single topic 400 WORD or more
WITH YOUR opinion about the topic -Which you choose and whether you support or reject the idea
you should use this word : I will discuss the ....... because I believe it is ......... > I also agree or desagree with the book that ........
4. Dealing with Danger
Technologies are not exclusively beneficial; they can also generate dangers that must be anticipated and prevented. However, sometimes companies mismanage these dangers and cause irreparable harm. This chapter describes tragic instances of the irreparable harm that companies have caused, such as the Bhopal chemical plant explosion and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. The companies involved, Union Carbide and BP, missed what in retrospect were obvious warnings that could have stopped these tragic events from occurring. This chapter discusses dilemmas in managing dangerous technologies—the cognitive limits of individuals, experts, and organizations in trying to rationally manage them, the issue of how much a life is worth, and the problem of making inferences from animal studies to humans. Bhopal: What Went Wrong The 1984 accident in Bhopal, India, killed more than 3,000 people and injured hundreds of thousands more.1 At the time, Union Carbide was manufacturing a highly toxic chemical in a part of India that had primitive infrastructure. It experienced an uncontrolled emission of poisonous gas that trapped thousands of victims. None of the backup systems designed to control a leak of this nature worked as planned. The company suffered from many organizational shortcomings and had ignored warnings that the plant was troubled and had potential for a catastrophe. Highly Toxic Chemicals The Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, was originally built in the 1960s in open fields within two miles of a local commercial and transportation center. At the time of start-up, it was used to mix chemical components that had been manufactured overseas and shipped to India to be made into final pesticide formulations that would be marketed. The plant did not pose much of a threat to neighboring residential areas. However, by 1978 Union Carbide, under pressure from the Indian government to manufacture the precursors to the pesticide in India, as opposed to abroad, built and began operating the facilities necessary to manufacture highly toxic compounds domestically. Although some local authorities objected to the plant’s location, state and national government officials overruled them. The plant was an important part of the local economy. Among the pesticide components manufactured at the plant was the highly toxic and unstable methyl isocyanate (MIC) used to make the active ingredient in the pesticide Sevin. It was manufactured in batches and stored in three large refrigerated concrete tanks within a few yards of each other just below the surface of the soil.
69
Weak Infrastructure Bhopal was the capital of one of the least industrialized states in India. Beginning in the 1950s, the government actively encouraged industrial development in the region, but it did not engage in a comprehensive planning effort. As a consequence, the infrastructure of services like roads, utilities, and communications services was poor. By the 1980s, stagnation in agricultural production in the country’s rural areas drove thousands of people to cities like Bhopal to look for work. Bhopal’s population increased sixfold between 1961 and 1981, almost three times the average for the country as a whole. A severe housing shortage forced migrants to build shantytowns wherever there was open space. Areas near industrial plants where work might be found were the migrants’ favorite choices. Right outside the walls of Union Carbide’s Bhopal plant could be found crowded squatters’ dwellings. An Uncontrolled Explosion At 11:00 p.m. on the evening of December 2, 1984, everything seemed normal at the Bhopal plant. However, half an hour later, a worker noticed an MIC leak near the vent gas scrubber. The workers planned to fix the leak after the 12:15 a.m. tea break, but by the time the break was over at 12:40 a.m., it was too late. The pressure in one of the tanks shot up and quickly exceeded its upper limits. The thick concrete tank cracked open and unleashed poisonous gases. A white cloud of MIC smoke shot out of the vent gas tower attached to the tank and settled over the vicinity. Each tank was equipped with pressure and temperature gauges, a hightemperature alarm, a level indicator, and high- and low-level alarms. Additionally, there was several safety systems designed to handle accidental leaks. They included a vent gas scrubber, which neutralized toxic gases with a caustic soda solution; a flare tower, which could burn off the gases; a refrigeration system to keep the chemical at low, stable temperatures; and a set of water-spray pipes, which could control escaping gases or extinguish fires.
70
Nonfunctioning Backups Within a few minutes, the fire brigade began to spray a curtain of water in the air to knock down the cloud of gas. The tower from which the gas was escaping was 120 feet high, however, and the water only reached about 100 feet in the air. The system of water spray pipes was too low to help. The vent gas scrubber, designed for an emergency of this nature, did not function. The scrubber had been under maintenance and had not been charged with a caustic soda solution. Even if the scrubber had been operational, it would have been ineffective because the temperature of the escaping gas was hotter than the system was designed to handle. The plant operators were afraid to turn on the flare tower for fear of igniting the large cloud of gas that enveloped the plant. It, too, was being repaired and was missing a four-foot section. Likewise, the coolant in the refrigeration system had been drained weeks before to be used in another part of the plant and was, therefore, useless in fighting the poisonous fume. Finally, routing the escaping gas into an empty MIC storage tank was not possible because, contrary to established safety procedures, there were no empty tanks available. Trapped Victims As the gas began to escape, the warning alarm sounded for just a few minutes before it was shut off. As the workers fled the plant in panic by foot, the four buses parked near the entrance, which were intended to be used for emergency evacuations of plant workers and nearby residents, were left sitting. In the shantytowns and neighborhoods outside the plant, chaos reigned. The gas seeped into the rooms of the sleeping population, suffocating hundreds in their sleep and driving others into a panicked run through the narrow streets where they inhaled more gas. Blinded by the cornea-clouding effect of the gas, lungs on fire, thousands died or were injured. Long after, the accident victims suffered from breathlessness, coughing, lung diseases, eye disorders, abdominal pain and vomiting, menstrual disorders, and psychological trauma. Many women had to contend with reproductive illnesses. Organizational Shortcomings In the weeks and months after the accident, a horde of reporters, Indian government officials, and Union Carbide technical experts analyzed the causes. Union Carbide contended that the accident was the result of sabotage by an unhappy employee. Whatever the proximate cause of the accident, it was clear that the magnitude of deaths and injuries were the result of more than an act of sabotage. The safety policies and procedures that were intended to prevent such an accident were not followed, and the reasons were rooted in the deteriorating financial condition of the Bhopal plant. The Bhopal plant was an unprofitable unit in an unimportant division. The plant had
71
lost money for three years in a row. As profits fell and budgets were cut, maintenance was deferred, employees were laid off, and training programs were scaled back. Morale was low, and many employees left voluntarily. Safety training was inadequate, and workers did not know how to deal with emergencies. They knew little about the toxic effects of MIC. Formal control of the plant had been turned over to an Indian subsidiary because of Indian law, but Union Carbide’s top management in Connecticut was still in charge of making important day-to-day decisions. Based on the receipt of monthly reports, the Connecticut management team continued to make financial, maintenance, and personnel decisions, while Indian personnel took care of safety inspections. The unpreparedness of the emergency infrastructure of the local government exacerbated the problem. The accident was not the result of technical malfunctions in equipment but stemmed from human errors and organizational shortcomings. Warnings Ignored There had been many small accidents in the past, yet the Department of Labor of the state where the accident occurred was grossly understaffed. It had only 15 inspectors for more than 8,000 industrial plants. Trained as mechanical engineers, most inspectors had little understanding of the hazards of a chemical plant. When a journalist from the Bhopal area wrote a series of articles in 1982 detailing the death of an employee that was caused by a chemical leak at the plant and warned of the possibility of a catastrophe, neither the plant management nor the government took action, even after the journalist wrote a letter to the chief minister of the state to warn him of the danger. A top government bureaucrat who requested that the plant be moved to another location because of the threat it posed to neighboring slum residents was transferred to another post. The Price of the Accident The plant was closed, 650 high-paying jobs were lost, and 1,500 other jobs were lost. Union Carbide was hit hard. Besides the $3 billion lawsuit filed against the company by the Indian government on behalf of the victims, the company’s reputation came under attack. Activist groups undertook a variety of campaigns against the company. The company’s stock dropped, its debt rating was reduced, and its shareholders sued it for not warning them about the risks. Ultimately, it could no longer operate as a separate company, and the remaining assets were sold to Dow Chemical. Union Carbide could have avoided this accident if it had taken the precautions needed to run the plant in a safe way. It should have designed the plant differently, made certain that safety equipment was running, not let financial considerations get in the way, and trained the workers in how to prevent an accident. The company should have heeded the warnings of journalists and government officials that an accident could happen.
72
The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: What Went Wrong BP made similar mistakes in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.2 The company had publicly announced it was moving away from petroleum while it was trying to expand its processing of Canadian tar sands. It had previous operational problems, leaks, and explosions at other facilities, even before the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill, but it did not learn from them. Beyond Petroleum BP was the first major oil company to acknowledge the risks of global warming. In 1996, BP left the Global Climate Coalition, an organization that opposed actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and joined the Business Environmental Leadership Council, which supported the Kyoto Accord. It tried to foster a new culture. It attempted to hire management with strong environmental beliefs and to be a cleaner and more progressive oil company, one with extensive pollutionprevention efforts. In 1998, the company purchased Amoco, and in 2000 it created a new slogan: “Better people, better products, beyond petroleum.” It invested in wind, solar, biofuels, gas-fired power generation, and hydrogen. It aimed to expand its solar subsidiary fourfold by 2007 and spent billions to develop renewable energy. The American Petroleum Institute treated it as a traitor and said that the company had “left the church.” Tar Sands Processing BP stumbled with its decision to expand capacity to process oil derived from Canadian tar sands at its Whiting, Indiana, plant, an expansion it undertook six years after its rebranding effort began. BP’s plan was to invest $3.8 billion to expand the facility, including $1.4 billion for environmental improvements. At first, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels welcomed the initiative because of the positive economic impact on the state. Indiana’s Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) and the EPA were on board to approve a water permit for the facility after BP notified county and city officials, received comments, and subjected its permit to multiple peer and other reviews. But the Chicago Tribune published an article titled “BP Gets Break on Dumping in Lake,” which led to protests, organized boycotts, more investigative news articles, and a petition campaign opposing the permit.
73
Explosion in Texas City and Oil Leaks in Alaska At the same time that the controversy was taking place in Indiana, BP was receiving bad press from a 2005 explosion at its Texas City facility, which claimed the lives of 15 workers and injured more than 170 people. This industrial accident was the worst in the United States in a decade. The explosion raised the scrutiny of investigators because of the many possible, suspected legal violations. Investigators did find that the firm’s refineries in Texas, which it had inherited from Amoco, were seriously mismanaged. Employees were not openly reporting accidents or safety concerns because of a company culture that relied on fear and intimidation to keep sensitive matters quiet. In 2006, the public became aware of a large oil leak in its Alaska pipeline. Up to 267,000 gallons of oil had been allowed to escape into Alaska’s North Slope tundra. The steelworkers’ union stated that for years it had been warning the company about such an accident, but its voice had been systematically ignored. In 2007, BP announced plea bargains over the tragedy in Texas City and the Alaska pipeline leak and admitted to legal violations. Its CEO was forced to resign. The Spill In 2010, the Macondo 252 well site in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico ruptured. BP had contracted with Transocean to drill this well below 5,000 feet of seawater and down into 13,000 feet of seabed. It licensed the Deepwater Horizon rig from Halliburton. The rig went up in flames, killing 11 crewmembers and seriously injuring 17, and the companies blamed each other. Many technical barriers had been breached, including the cement at the bottom of the well, the mud in the well and in the riser, and the blowout preventer. The Deepwater Horizon was the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, Following the explosion and sinking of the oil rig, the sea-floor oil gusher continued for 87 days. The total discharge was 4.9 million barrels of oil, and reports indicated the well site still had not completely stopped leaking. A massive effort had to be undertaken to protect beaches, wetlands, and estuaries. There was extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats and fishing and tourism industries. Dolphins and other marine life died in record numbers, and tuna and other fish developed deformities of the heart and organs.
74
The Many Mistakes Many investigations explored the causes of the spill and identified them to be technical and procedural failures and poor management oversight. BP, Transocean, and Halliburton blamed each other. The U.S. government’s 2011 report mostly faulted BP for defective cement on the well, but also rig operator Transocean and contractor Halliburton. BP and its partners were blamed for cost-cutting, insufficient safety systems, and the neglect of systemic root causes that could lead to a reoccurrence without significant reform in their practices. The day before the accident, the crew had pumped cement to the bottom of the borehole, a standard procedure that should have stopped the oil from leaking. It conducted checks to determine that the well had been properly sealed, but eight safety systems failed: 1. The cement at the bottom of the borehole did not seal. 2. The two mechanical valves designed to stop the flow of oil and gas failed. 3. The crew misinterpreted pressure tests to determine whether the well had been sealed. 4. The crew did not spot the leak early enough. 5. A second valve called the blowout preventer used by the crew did not work properly and failed to stop the flow of oil. 6. The flow of oil ignited when it overwhelmed a separator that was meant to divert the mud and gas away from the rig and vent it safely through pipes on the side. 7. The gas alarm detection system should have triggered the closure of ventilation fans to prevent ignition. 8. The blowout preventer’s safety mechanisms did not shut the valves automatically because of a defective switch, and the battery did not have power. In 2012, BP and the United States Department of Justice settled federal criminal charges, with BP pleading guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter, two misdemeanors, and a felony for lying to Congress. BP agreed to four years of government monitoring of its safety practices and ethics and accepted a record-setting $4.525 billion fine and other payments. In 2014, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the company was primarily responsible for the spill because of its gross negligence and reckless conduct. Additional penalties as high as $18 billion had serious repercussions for BP’s future. The company’s expansion plans were reduced, and its ability to compete with other large multinational oil companies like Exxon Mobil and Shell became limited.
75
Inherently Dangerous Technologies Sociologist Charles Perrow has argued that the operation of toxic chemical plants in developing countries and the search for oil deep under water in the world’s oceans are inherently dangerous technologies that even under the best conditions are difficult to manage.3 They have the capacity to take the lives of many people at once and do irreparable harm to people and the environment. Perrow claims that these types of technologies are prone to normal accidents. No matter how effective the management practices are, they are likely to fail. Better operator training, safer designs, more quality control, and more effective regulation cannot entirely eliminate the threat because the technologies involve not only catastrophic risks, but also complexity and tight coupling. Reactions occur quickly, systems are interrelated, and they cannot be isolated from one another. Complexity means that the technologies have many components (parts, procedures, and operators) that interact in unexpected ways. Failure can take place in more than one component at a time. (For example, a fire starts and the fire alarm remains silent.) Given the interaction of multiple failures, the causes of failure may be incomprehensible for a critical period of time to operators. During this critical period, the operators may not be able to figure out what has gone wrong and what to do. The problem of not knowing what to do may be overcome if slack—the time and resources needed to figure out what has happened and how to fix it—is available. However, the systems are subject to tight coupling and do not have sufficient slack. They work fast, their parts cannot be isolated from each other, and they cannot be quickly or easily shut off. Many of the interactions that take place are not directly observable by operators, so it is hard for them to know what is really going on. Because of complexity, tight coupling, and catastrophic potential, managing the danger of these technologies, according to Perrow, is impossible (see Exhibit 4.1).4 Complexity and tight coupling call for contradictory management actions. Complexity requires preparation for unexpected contingencies. Therefore, it is necessary for those who manage these technologies to take independent, creative action. In contrast, tight coupling means actions have to be carefully monitored and controlled. Therefore, those managing these technologies cannot afford to make mistakes and take independent action. This contradiction makes it hard to safely manage these technologies.
Explanation / Answer
I agree ,BP and union carbide disaster are one of the biggest disasters in the world which have influenced millions of lives. BP oil spill was one of the biggest disaster of its kind and has directly affected thousands of people were relying on the specific resources.
Union carbide disaster was one of the most vigorous disasters of the history, it shook the whole world and the became a reason of mass destruction.
These two disasters are considered as one of the most intense disasters of the world but in both of the disasters, the justice is not the same.
Union carbide India was only fined $2,100 after a trial of 23 years by a local court of Bhopal for being negligent towards the specific accident. After that the e were multiple settlements and Indian government also sued the Union carbide for 3.3 billion dollars in 1985 which was later settled for 470 million dollars.
After looking at this is specific differences in provision of split stereotype with both of the organisation I would directly
In the BP oil spill each and every government is supporting BP and they have done extremely expensive relief work while maintaining so many relief programs and a proper duration of the specific disaster. But in Bhopal there is no such approach from the government companies which were responsible for the specific accident. They have extreme effects of carbide but there was no or very little rehabilitation done by the government or by the company who was responsible for the specific accident. This is specific stereotype different accident at the same intensity or Bhopal disaster has increased intensity as it involved death of thousands of people at the real time is totally unjustified.
BP oil spill has been properly treated by each and every government inside United States of America as well as other countries. BP has been given instructions by the government and the proper care of oil spill has also taken to reduce the effect of the specific disaster.
I would say,On the other hand Bhopal disaster was left and wasn't really treated according to its size and intensity. Bhopal disaster has influenced millions of lives and still influencing lives,but there is very less rehabilitation as well as compensation work done by the company or by the government.
The stereotypes the industrialization of our society. The specific Industrialists has influenced the government as well as markets by a large margin which y give them opportunity to neglect importance of public as well as the mass destruction. They can simply ignore and go on their normal lives even after the population is affected greatly.
After looking into the information given in the book and relating it to the moral and ethical standards of the society I agree that stereotype does exist at industrial scale and affecting the lives as well as operating structure of the organisation in a great manner.
Related Questions
Navigate
Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.