Sustainable development blog : ecology and humanitarian aid

We are soon to celebrate a grievous anniversary. In Bhopal, on the 3 of december 1984,that is to say almost 25 years ago, occured the most important industrial catastrophe the world went through. A Union Carbide (former name of Dow) factory spread 40 tons ofmethyl isocyanate (CH3-N=C=O) in the city atmosphere, reaping a huge amount of human lives : from 16.000 to 30.000 people, including 8.000 on the first night. It is acknowledged that Union Carbide has neglected basic security measures to save money, whereas they perfectly knew the chemicals yielded in there were highly toxic.

They never apologized nor tried to sort the problem out. And the Indian state hasn't either. In 1999, Union Carbide became a subsidiary company of Dow. But nothing changed for the victims. The toxic products have remained in the air or in the ground, and keep killing dozens of people every month.

Out of India, that painful event is deep-buried in the memories, under the ashes of time. And under Dow's glowing communication campaigns :

Really, when I watch this, that nauseates me. How dare them ?! They must pay. They must not get off lightly. No way ! Fortunately, some brilliant people have found a way to buzz it around. The « Yes Men » set up an awesome prank : they pretended they were Dow's spokesmen... And said Dow apologized for its past errors, accepted full responsibility for the Bhopal catastrophe and would indemnify the victims back. And the BBC relayed these fake news !

Dow's shares plunged down and lost 3%. ;-) A smart way to remind them of their ethical duties.