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Speaker 1: What poisoning my giant city of hundreds of thousands of

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Speaker 1: people due to industrial negligence. Robert Evans host Behind the Bastards,

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Speaker 1: the podcast where we tell you everything you don't know

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Speaker 1: about the very worst people in all of history. Uh.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is the inimitable, the inevitable, the inimicable.

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Speaker 1: Jamie Loftus is inevitable, just a natural part of life.

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Speaker 1: Hi am, I am. I allowed to tell the listeners

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Speaker 1: that I didn't know what we were talking about today

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Speaker 1: until I think, I think you just revealed it. I

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Speaker 1: did a little bit. If you know much about this

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Speaker 1: particular disaster. No, no, not your call that disaster. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm glad that you first of Jamie Loftus, co

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Speaker 1: host of the Bechtel Cast. Yeah, the the actress and

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Speaker 1: and creative visionary behind a one woman show that's going

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Speaker 1: to be in Scotland soon. Boss whom is girl? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: August Baby, come out, Scotland Heads, Scotland heads, check her out. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's actually I'm I'm really glad that you guessed Chair Nobyle. Um,

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Speaker 1: because I think a lot of people, having heard that intro,

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Speaker 1: would have guest Chair Noble and Judging by the state

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Speaker 1: of my Twitter mentions a month or so ago. I

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Speaker 1: think about everybody I know was watching chair Noble. One

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Speaker 1: it's because Jared's Jared was it Jared Harris? Um, it's

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Speaker 1: because he's uh, sexy daddy, and people love sexy daddy's

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Speaker 1: on TV. I know everybody loves a sexy dad. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: I adopt children just to be sexier. Yeah, don't take

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Speaker 1: care of them, don't raise them, just adopt him. Well,

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Speaker 1: that sounds extremely negligent, and um, honestly, off, I love it. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so yeah, I haven't seen the chair Nobile TV show yet.

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Speaker 1: I am going to watch it. I just haven't have

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Speaker 1: time to get into it. Um. And a lot of

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Speaker 1: people have begged me to do an episode on cher Nobile,

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Speaker 1: and I expect I will one of these days because

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Speaker 1: it's it's a really terrible disaster. There were a lot

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Speaker 1: of bastards, you know, behind it. Uh. But I think

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Speaker 1: most people who watched the series but didn't do much

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Speaker 1: outside reading on Chernobyl would be surprised to learn that

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Speaker 1: the the immediate death toll from the disaster was quite

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Speaker 1: a lot lower than I think. TV dramatizations might lead

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Speaker 1: you to believe. UM, the explosion killed two people directly. UM.

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Speaker 1: Another twenty nine died in the hospital in a few

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Speaker 1: days following the disaster. UM. And that's it as far

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Speaker 1: as a direct death toll from like the actual meltdown itself,

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Speaker 1: actually kind of no big deal. Well I wouldn't say that, um,

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Speaker 1: but it is, it is. It is, like the long

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Speaker 1: term health consequences are a little bit harder to pin down.

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Speaker 1: Can I put you on record as Chernobyl n b D. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Chernobyl n b D in fact maybe good, maybe maybe great? Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: uh no. As of like two thousand eleven, there have

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Speaker 1: been a total of twenty eight deaths due to acute

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Speaker 1: radiation syndrome and another fifteen fatal cases of child thyroid cancer. UM. Now,

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Speaker 1: because radiation lasts a very long time, the eventual death

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Speaker 1: toll from Chernobyl decades from now will probably number into

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Speaker 1: the thousands. Uh. In two thousand sixteen, the World Health

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Speaker 1: Organization estimated the eventual death toll of Chernobyl at around

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Speaker 1: four thousand people. UM. It's pretty serious disaster, very bad, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: terrible tragedy. But today we're going to talk about a disaster.

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Speaker 1: The dwarfs chare Nobyl, a calamity many times deadlier than

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Speaker 1: the worst nuclear disaster in human history, with longer lasting

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Speaker 1: catastrophic impacts on the people who live around it. Today

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Speaker 1: we are talking about the worst industrial disaster in the

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Speaker 1: history of our species. Today we're talking about Bopaul India.

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Speaker 1: You've heard of bow Paul, I have not. Oh good,

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Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear this new disaster to mester m everybody.

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Speaker 1: We all are. That's a disaster capitalism, baby, Oh, I

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Speaker 1: love it. Oh, I would get I would pay thirty

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Speaker 1: dollars for a T shirt that says disaster capitalism and

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Speaker 1: you think too hard about how it was made? Sophie,

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Speaker 1: Can we get the T shirt? People on that? What

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Speaker 1: do you? What do you? What do you do that

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Speaker 1: to my dream? Sophie. But I'll do it and then

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Speaker 1: I'll put it in the bechtelcast store. We'll sell it

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Speaker 1: with another show. Yeah, just cash that check on somebody

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Speaker 1: else's account. So, uh. The question I want everybody to

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Speaker 1: ask themselves sort of at the end of this episode

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Speaker 1: and kind of be thinking about as we go through

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Speaker 1: this story. Um, because this is something that I think

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Speaker 1: about a lot, is why does every Western school kid

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Speaker 1: learn the name Chernobyl, but nobody knows. Are very few

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Speaker 1: people in the West have heard of bow paul Um.

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Speaker 1: So let's keep that keep that one in your head

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Speaker 1: as we go through this. Bopaul is a city the

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Speaker 1: capital of the Indian state of Madya Pradesh. Uh It's

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Speaker 1: known as the City of Lakes and is famed for

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Speaker 1: being one of the greenest cities in all of India.

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Speaker 1: It's a little bit like India's Portland, um, you might say,

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Speaker 1: at least geographically um. In the early nineteen eighties, it

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Speaker 1: was home to more than a million people. Now in

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Speaker 1: the middle of the last century, India was hit with

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Speaker 1: a major food crisis due to an exploding population and

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Speaker 1: farmland that had still not really recovered from the damage

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Speaker 1: done to it by centuries of British misrule. So India

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Speaker 1: launched the Green Revolution in the early nineteen sixties with

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Speaker 1: the goal of using science and technology to reform their

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Speaker 1: agricultural practices and increase their crop yields. In the late sixties,

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Speaker 1: the government started reaching out to foreign companies, offering them

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Speaker 1: incentives to bring jobs to India, and one of the

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Speaker 1: companies they approached was a Union Carbide, an American chemical

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Speaker 1: giant with a name that like sounds like they're going

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Speaker 1: to do to say that sounds like bad writing anytime.

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Speaker 1: That's it's like, can someone just tell the people naming

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Speaker 1: these companies? I guess now that like now things aren't

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Speaker 1: quite as on the nose sinister now. It's just like

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Speaker 1: every evil company ends with an L y. Yeah yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: like murder Le murder Lee is only slightly less subtle

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Speaker 1: than Union Carbide. Union Carbide. Yeah. That that also sounds

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Speaker 1: like a really good name for cartoon villain Union Carbide. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah. We meet him early in the movie

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Speaker 1: and he's like, my name's Union and you're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: that sounds good. And he's like Union carbide and you're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: ship ship kill us, just like all carbides do exactly.

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Speaker 1: M hm. Now, Union Carbide one of their big, big

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Speaker 1: They made a lot of different chemicals, but one of

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Speaker 1: their big money makers was a pesticide called seven and

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Speaker 1: it's spelled se v I N Are you kidding me? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's such a sinister name for a pesticide, isn't it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't, I don't like, but it's just

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Speaker 1: it's really gaudy. Yeah, yeah, seven, Like why, I don't

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Speaker 1: know why. That's maybe because of the movie Seven with

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Speaker 1: Brad Pitt, but it just sounds so yeah like met

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Speaker 1: Ball evil, like really can't be evil anyways, Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: can't be exaggerated evil. A pesticide called seven, a pesticide

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Speaker 1: called seven now seven was popular in Latin American popular

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Speaker 1: in Asia. Um and so since it was so popular

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Speaker 1: in Asia, from like a balance sheet standpoint, having a

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Speaker 1: manufacturing plant in India made a lot of sense for

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Speaker 1: Union Carbide. So the company worked out in an arrangement

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Speaker 1: with the Indian government where the Indian government would hold

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Speaker 1: a twenty two percent steak in the Union Carbide subsidiary

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Speaker 1: company that was formed to manage the plant, Union Carbide

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Speaker 1: India Limited. There was a great excitement around the deal

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Speaker 1: at first, and Union Carbide began to market their products

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Speaker 1: using the slogan science helps build a new India, which

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Speaker 1: is again so fucking sinister, Like god, yeah, it's just

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Speaker 1: when people are so villainous they don't even care if

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Speaker 1: they come off that way. That is they were, they

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Speaker 1: were inadvertently foreshadowing. This just sounds like have you seen

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Speaker 1: have you seen Paddington? To Robert no way of not

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Speaker 1: Paddington to about this. It's basically a rehashing of this.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like, no, it's uh, this is more Caitlin

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Speaker 1: Tonto's department. But in Paddington to Hugh, Hugh Grant plays

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Speaker 1: this over the top villain who sounds like you would

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Speaker 1: have a pesticide called seven and say and say like quick,

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Speaker 1: like a quippy villain. Yeah. Yeah, Also an incredible dance number.

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Speaker 1: Well that's good. That's good, Hugh Grant, you say yes, yes.

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Speaker 1: And the career defining role. Yeah, that's that's good because

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Speaker 1: his career needed some definition after that garbage he put

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Speaker 1: out in the nineties. I see, I can. I can

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Speaker 1: rarely tell the difference between uh, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant.

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Speaker 1: And that's my feminism as I understand it. Uh, if

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Speaker 1: water rolls off of its back, it's Colin Firth. If

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Speaker 1: you throw it in water and it floats, Okay, that's

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Speaker 1: very helpful, thank you. So water bottle to test whether

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Speaker 1: or not it's Colin Firth or Hugh Grant. So. Construction

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Speaker 1: of the Union Carbide plant started in nineteen sixty nine. Now,

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Speaker 1: the plant's purpose would be to manufacture carborrell which was

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Speaker 1: the active ingredient in the popular pesticide seven, and another

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Speaker 1: chemical called alid carb for a pesticide named Timmock. Both

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Speaker 1: bug poisons required large amounts of a regular poison to manufacture.

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Speaker 1: The key ingredient was something called methyl isocyanate, which is

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Speaker 1: an inspeakably deadly gas at like room temperatures uh m

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Speaker 1: I see, as we will refer to it in most

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Speaker 1: of this episode. Is colorless and heavier than air. It

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Speaker 1: functions similarly to fos gene gas, the deadliest poison gas

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Speaker 1: of the First World War, and appropriately enough, phosgene gas

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Speaker 1: is one of the byproducts of producing m I C.

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Speaker 1: So they're making bug poison out of this unspeakably deadly

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Speaker 1: uh poison gas critical ingredient. I am very curious about

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Speaker 1: what their graphic design game is because this all sounds

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Speaker 1: so sinister, and I'm wondering if it matches. You know.

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Speaker 1: There there are some ads I've seen. One of them

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Speaker 1: was like a Latin American ad, and it's got like

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Speaker 1: a smiling um like in the background, like a smiling

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Speaker 1: Mexican farmer, and all white clothes with a bushel of

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Speaker 1: fruits and vegetables. In his arm, and then in the

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Speaker 1: foreground you've got the seven pesticide, which has been like

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Speaker 1: anthropomorphized as a tiny person beating the ship out of bugs.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's great. Okay, well, okay, didn't didn't disappoint. Yeah. Now, Initially,

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Speaker 1: all the methyl ice so cianate used in the Bopaul

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Speaker 1: plant was manufactured in the good old us of A.

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Speaker 1: The site where the plant was constructed had only been

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Speaker 1: zoned for light industry and commercial use, not for manufacturing

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Speaker 1: tons and tons of poisonous chemical gas, as it was

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Speaker 1: surrounded both by bodies of water and densely populated slums.

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Speaker 1: But by the late nineteen seventies, financial pressure from competition

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Speaker 1: led Union Carbide to decide they should start manufacturing m

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Speaker 1: I C in Bopaul. They called the process of refitting

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Speaker 1: their plant to manufacture the raw materials and the final

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Speaker 1: product backward integration. Now, Union Carbide instituted rigorous safety procedures

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Speaker 1: in order to keep the plant and the citizens of

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Speaker 1: Bopaul safe. There were two sirens allowed continuous one to

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Speaker 1: warn members of the public and a quieter one to

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Speaker 1: announce problems to the factory workers. Within the plant itself,

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Speaker 1: there were also a number of safety measures within the plant.

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Speaker 1: A refrigeration unit to chill the m I C, thus

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Speaker 1: condensing it into a liquid and rendering it much safer.

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Speaker 1: Event gas scrubber to remove dangerous substances from the ands,

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Speaker 1: industrial exhaust in a flare tower in order to burn

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Speaker 1: off excess deadly gases. But the most important safety feature

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Speaker 1: of the Union Carbide plant was a well trained workforce.

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Speaker 1: All plant operators were required to have a college degree

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Speaker 1: in either a related scientific field or in engineering. They

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Speaker 1: received six months of training to ensure that they had

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Speaker 1: a working understanding of not just their own specific jobs,

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Speaker 1: but the jobs of everyone else on their shift. This

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Speaker 1: is critical in plants working with chemicals is dangerous as

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Speaker 1: m I see. Workers obviously need to understand the whole

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Speaker 1: plant so they could spot potential problems or mistakes before

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Speaker 1: a disaster occurs. Great. That sounds above board, leaps and

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Speaker 1: bounds over there, enos very much better than the people

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Speaker 1: are qualified to be doing their jobs. I like this.

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Speaker 1: I actually I was looking up some of the advertising

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Speaker 1: for this as well, and I found did you see

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Speaker 1: the advertising campaign? That's just a gigantic white hand pouring

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Speaker 1: a vial of chemicals onto. I swear to God, it's

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Speaker 1: a gigantic white man's hand pouring chemicals onto India and

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Speaker 1: build a new India, India. Union Carbide a hand in

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Speaker 1: things to come. Gigantic. I mean, she's a hand in

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Speaker 1: things to come. Come on, people, it's just it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's hideous. I mean, if you're if you're listening to

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Speaker 1: this podcast and a Hollywood producer, there's your intro for

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Speaker 1: the mini series based on Bopaul India. Just animate all

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Speaker 1: of these horrifying ads and slogans. It's like, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's there's another one with the huge white man's hand

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Speaker 1: pouring chemicals onto a factory in India. What do you

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Speaker 1: supposed to mean? Oh, more jobs through science Hollywood, Netflix,

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Speaker 1: you're just leaving money on the table if you don't

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Speaker 1: produce this the Yeah, please check out the very menacing

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Speaker 1: white man's hand advertising for Union Carbide. It is it

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Speaker 1: is of fying. Wow, there's there's at least ten of them.

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Speaker 1: He's holding a he's holding strawberries and wine, he's holding

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Speaker 1: dirt in one, pouring chemicals in a lot uh one

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Speaker 1: in his hands on fire, Oh cool, fingers of flame.

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Speaker 1: That pierce solid rock. What the fund is wrong with

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Speaker 1: these people? Why would you why? This one is wild

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Speaker 1: fingers a flame that pierced solid rock. Yes, through a

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Speaker 1: dramatic new process known as jet piercing. Holes can now

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Speaker 1: be burned straight through solid rock. The harder the rock,

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Speaker 1: the more efficient the operation. A special combination of oxygen,

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Speaker 1: fuel and water does the job, and does it just

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Speaker 1: the fraction of the time of the old drill attack.

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Speaker 1: So there's a yeah, there's a flaming hand just punching

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Speaker 1: through rock. Cool. Cool, Okay, Well these all sound like

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Speaker 1: great ads that were dreamed up by coked up people

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Speaker 1: who had like a gut level intuition that their company

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Speaker 1: was going to do something horrible. And what year are

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Speaker 1: we in right now? For We're in like the nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventies at this point, Like things get up and running.

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Speaker 1: We're full on in Like this is a Don Draper joint.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, firehand punching through rock, got it? Yeah? Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So you know, I just walked through all of the

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Speaker 1: kind of the safety features of the ba POL plant

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Speaker 1: and on paper that's how everything worked. But you know,

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Speaker 1: as I talked about earlier, increasing financial pressures led Union

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Speaker 1: carbide to start cutting costs, and the easiest place to

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Speaker 1: cut was basic safety procedures. In nineteen seventy six, the

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Speaker 1: two trade unions that represented the plants workers sent out

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Speaker 1: letters of complaint to their managers and the Indian Ministry

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Speaker 1: of Labor, talking about unsafe levels of pollution within the plant.

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Speaker 1: They received no response. The nineteen eighties started, and Union

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Speaker 1: Carbides financial woes continued, conditions that the factory began to

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Speaker 1: degrade further as wages were cut and standards for workers

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Speaker 1: started dropping. Union Carbides stopped require all of their employees

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Speaker 1: to have degrees. Six months of training turned into eight weeks.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty one, things had gotten bad enough that

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Speaker 1: fos gene gas spewed out of a badly maintained holding

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Speaker 1: tank and into the face of a worker. He ripped

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Speaker 1: off his mask in a panic and died horrifically three

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Speaker 1: days later. His managers yeah terrible. His managers, of course,

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Speaker 1: management of the plant blamed him because he'd removed his

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Speaker 1: mask after getting sprayed in the face with poison. UH.

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Speaker 1: The union pointed out that the faulty valve had been

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Speaker 1: responsible for the accident, and that the plant had not

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Speaker 1: provided the worker with proper protective gear, so the mask

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Speaker 1: would not have done much if he'd left it on

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Speaker 1: his face. Plant management ignored this, of course, they does

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Speaker 1: it sounds very inconvenient. Sounds very inconvenient for them. In

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Speaker 1: January of nineteen eighty two, there was another false gene leak.

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Speaker 1: Twenty four workers were hospitalized, but at least this time

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Speaker 1: nobody died. Workers began to agitate for better safety precautions.

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Speaker 1: In February of nineteen eighty two, and M I C

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Speaker 1: leak injured another eighteen workers. In August of the same year,

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Speaker 1: a chemical engineer suffered burns to thirty of his body

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Speaker 1: from another m I C leak. Leaks continued to happen

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Speaker 1: every month or so, injuring workers at a steady pace. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you were a responsible corporation, you might say, boy,

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Speaker 1: the monthly poison gas leaks might be a sign that

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Speaker 1: something is awry with our factory, and perhaps major changes

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Speaker 1: should be made. But what if you were the type

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Speaker 1: of company whose mascot is a gigantic Caucasian hand, what

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Speaker 1: would you what would you do if that were that

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Speaker 1: were more your vibe? Well, uh, I think you would

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Speaker 1: continue cutting costs uh and I think this is we're

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Speaker 1: getting to one of the most fucked up crazy things

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Speaker 1: of this whole story. So Union Carbide, to their credit,

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Speaker 1: did make some concessions for the health and well being

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Speaker 1: of their Indian employees. It provided them with twice yearly

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Speaker 1: medical exams from the plant doctor, which sounds sounds great.

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Speaker 1: They did some year in tests that sounds like some

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Speaker 1: bare minimum stuff that never happens. It was. It was

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Speaker 1: a little less than bare minimum because while they were

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Speaker 1: given blood and urine tests, workers were never actually given

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Speaker 1: the results of their exams. UH. Union Carbide India management

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Speaker 1: put out brochures advising employees that they could develop a

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Speaker 1: resistance to poison by drinking six or seven glasses of

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Speaker 1: milk per day and eating a lot of fish and eggs.

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Speaker 1: What milk? What is the logic behind that? Is it?

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Speaker 1: It's just like I'm like a mommy thing like shut

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Speaker 1: up and drink your milk and there's no way and

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Speaker 1: you'll never die. By this, Union Carbide knows that the

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Speaker 1: plant's not going to be there forever. They've got a

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Speaker 1: couple of years more and they're gonna gradually kind of

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Speaker 1: like pull all the assets out of it and shut

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Speaker 1: it down, and they the unions are agitating for expensive

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Speaker 1: work to make the plant safe and stop killing workers

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Speaker 1: and stuff. So this was sort of a delaying tactic.

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Speaker 1: We're not going to give them any money or better

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Speaker 1: medical care. Tell them to drink milk again, so over

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Speaker 1: the top villainous. Yeah, it's really fucked up, Like you

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Speaker 1: can pick you're someone in a gigantic like money thrown thing, like,

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Speaker 1: just tell them to drink milk. I don't care, and

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Speaker 1: drink milk. It's amazing. Did they provide the milk? Why

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Speaker 1: would you do that? No, of course not hate it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's awful. And at the same time, by the time

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Speaker 1: we're through with this, you'll barely remember that because of

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Speaker 1: how fucked up everything else is like this fucking story.

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Speaker 1: By the end of two most of the original m

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Speaker 1: I C operators had resigned workers from other union carbide

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Speaker 1: plants without the proper training and experience to work with

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Speaker 1: such a dangerous chemical, were brought in to manage the plant.

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Speaker 1: They received fourteen days of training. That's clearly enough, jeez.

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Speaker 1: Due to fears of industrial espionage, these new workers did

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Speaker 1: not have access to manuals that told them how to

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Speaker 1: do their job. Only the manager could access the manual,

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Speaker 1: which was of course printed in English, a language not

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Speaker 1: spoken by the majority of the workers. Cool. Cool, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I mean it seems fair to I love a good

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Speaker 1: tale of oppressing the poor, especially when it's being done

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Speaker 1: by evil, wet American like milk. Oppressing the poor does

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Speaker 1: a body good. That'll be funny to the three or

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Speaker 1: four people who remember that old milk industry campaign. I do,

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Speaker 1: I do remember it. Yeah, I'm still stuck on the

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Speaker 1: milk thing. I mean, I just it's fucking wild. God,

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Speaker 1: have someone punched that up. At least have someone punch

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Speaker 1: up this villainy. It's it's coming in a little stale

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Speaker 1: for me a little bit. Yeah. At this point, the

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Speaker 1: union card by plant in Bopaul was already dangerously ill maintained,

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Speaker 1: as I think we've established, But company management decided there

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Speaker 1: were still more costs to be cut. They started slashing

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Speaker 1: worker training even more. According to a U. C. Davis

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Speaker 1: paper by Ingrid Eckerman on working conditions in the plant quote,

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Speaker 1: during the training period, technicians were treated as casual workers.

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Speaker 1: After the training, they were only paid an hourly rate.

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Speaker 1: A technician who accepted a job at the m I

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Speaker 1: C plant got a paper about receiving six months of training,

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Speaker 1: but after five weeks he was asked to stop the

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Speaker 1: training and to take charge as a full fledged plant operator.

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Speaker 1: In the matter of promotions, individuals with little experience but

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Speaker 1: with unquestioning loyalty to the bosses were invariably selected before others.

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Speaker 1: A demand for extra safety precautions led to warnings that

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Speaker 1: appointments could be terminated in nineteen eight three. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty four, there were personnel reductions in order to cut costs.

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Speaker 1: Workers were encouraged to take early retirement. Three hundred temporary

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Speaker 1: workers were laid off and another hundred fifty permanent workers

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Speaker 1: were put in a pool to be assigned to jobs

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Speaker 1: as needed. The operating shifts were cut from twelve to

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Speaker 1: six and maintenance shifts from six to two. So they

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Speaker 1: just cut out two thirds of the maintenance shifts. Like,

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Speaker 1: we don't need that on this deadly poison, right, we

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Speaker 1: don't need anyone checking our work. No, they're okay, So

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Speaker 1: do we know? Like what what am I trying to say?

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Speaker 1: I like, are are they dodging existing labor laws? Or

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Speaker 1: are the labor laws in India at this time uh,

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Speaker 1: sort of allowing this to happen, or is the company

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Speaker 1: having to sort of like dodge around stuff. Both of

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00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:12,080
Speaker 1: those things are simultaneously true. So they are skirting some

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00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:16,720
Speaker 1: laws and regulations, primarily about safety. Um, and they're able

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00:22:16,720 --> 00:22:18,800
Speaker 1: to get away with it because of their connections in

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00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:21,280
Speaker 1: the Indian government and because of the amount of money

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00:22:21,320 --> 00:22:23,880
Speaker 1: that that this all represents. So both of those things

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00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:27,360
Speaker 1: are true. Um. You know what else is true, Jamie?

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Speaker 1: What's true? Robert? None of the sponsors of this show

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00:22:31,480 --> 00:22:36,800
Speaker 1: have contributed to an industrial disaster of the ski Can

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Speaker 1: you be so sure, Robert? This is a terrible ad player.

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Speaker 1: These advertisers are not guilty of any major disaster that

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00:22:47,080 --> 00:22:50,320
Speaker 1: we're currently aware of. Of course, this is always subject

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00:22:50,320 --> 00:22:53,800
Speaker 1: to change, and it's entirely possible the next ad will

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00:22:53,800 --> 00:22:56,200
Speaker 1: be a Coke Industries ad. And one of the things

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Speaker 1: Coke Industry has gotten attacked for is that at their

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00:22:58,760 --> 00:23:01,320
Speaker 1: oil refining plants they were doing the same thing that

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00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:03,560
Speaker 1: Bow Paul was doing, where they were giving people screenings

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Speaker 1: through levels of toxic chemicals in their blood, but not

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Speaker 1: giving them the results of their blood tests, and so

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00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:10,800
Speaker 1: people died because they got sick. But Coke industries wanted

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00:23:10,840 --> 00:23:12,600
Speaker 1: to ring a little bit of extra productivity out of

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Speaker 1: them before they went to get treated. Yeah, how fun.

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00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:19,679
Speaker 1: How fun? So if if the AD is for coke industries,

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00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:23,280
Speaker 1: they have in fact contributed to industrial disasters on a

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00:23:23,320 --> 00:23:29,400
Speaker 1: significant scale. But you know, Dick pills, haven't Yeah, Dick pills.

399
00:23:29,880 --> 00:23:31,960
Speaker 1: Do you do brain pills? We just turned down brain

400
00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:34,440
Speaker 1: We don't do brain pills. I won't do brain pills.

401
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:37,840
Speaker 1: I'm fine with dick pills. I think that's ethical, but

402
00:23:37,880 --> 00:23:40,080
Speaker 1: no brain pills. We turned down almost everything, which is

403
00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:43,920
Speaker 1: why we're still poor. You know, I I don't. I

404
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:47,920
Speaker 1: don't have much of a conscience. I want so brain pills. Uh,

405
00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:51,080
Speaker 1: I think I love Dick pills. Dick pills, I would, yeah,

406
00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:53,160
Speaker 1: I don't think we would want an offer for that. Yeah,

407
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:55,479
Speaker 1: we should get I hope that we get some you know,

408
00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 1: dick pill offers some really any any genitalia pills were

409
00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:04,160
Speaker 1: to talk any any genital related products. Yeah, I want.

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00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:08,680
Speaker 1: I wanted to be like an intersectional, inclusive Uh scary pill.

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00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:12,720
Speaker 1: I mean speaking of the milk industries ads, I wish

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00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:15,480
Speaker 1: there were just a genitalia industry that we could we

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00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:22,000
Speaker 1: could plug for big genital. Yeah, just plug the concept

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00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:25,919
Speaker 1: of genitalia that came straight down from Big Genital. You

415
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:30,960
Speaker 1: can't trust him. Yeah, b g all right, I think

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00:24:30,960 --> 00:24:34,200
Speaker 1: we put enough distance in between my terrible first segue

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00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 1: and in the ads. Now it's time for products. We're back.

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00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 1: We're talking about directions. Uh, but we don't need to

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00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 1: keep talking about directions. No. That's the beautiful thing about

420
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:53,359
Speaker 1: a conversation about directions. It can end it at any time.

421
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:55,920
Speaker 1: It can end at any time, much like an direction

422
00:24:56,400 --> 00:25:00,400
Speaker 1: unless you have Dick bills. Oh my own a little

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00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:03,919
Speaker 1: loved that one. Good. I I did that one for

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00:25:03,960 --> 00:25:06,080
Speaker 1: all of the uncles and also Bob Dole, who was

425
00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:09,800
Speaker 1: a big listener of this podcast, huge fan of the Yeah,

426
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:15,359
Speaker 1: he's got merch. Yeah, thank you, Bobby. All right, let's

427
00:25:15,520 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 1: let's get back into the into the tail here so uh.

428
00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:22,639
Speaker 1: Chemical accidents continue to pace throughout the early eighties. In

429
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:25,320
Speaker 1: October of nineteen eighty two, an operator was burned and

430
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:27,960
Speaker 1: two workers exposed to gases during an m I C leak.

431
00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:31,879
Speaker 1: In four there were numerous additional leaks of m I C,

432
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:36,680
Speaker 1: chlorine gas, fosgene gas, and other deadly poisons, often multiple

433
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 1: poisons would leak out at the same time, which is

434
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:43,639
Speaker 1: you know, I love I love synergy, and the synergy

435
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 1: of deadly poisons is you know, all synergy. I love

436
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:52,960
Speaker 1: chef salad of death and despair. Okay, make deadly poisons

437
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:58,920
Speaker 1: work together again. That's kind my election slogan. Yeah, there's

438
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker 1: so many, I mean, yeah, any any story about like

439
00:26:02,359 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 1: factory worker um abuse and neglect. It's just it's just

440
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 1: the fucking worst. Yeah, it's a fucking nightmare. And this

441
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:13,800
Speaker 1: is the worst of those stories in the history of

442
00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 1: the human race. So yeah, And of course, as always,

443
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:20,120
Speaker 1: it's like because it's like, I don't know, I never

444
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 1: I never learned about this, because even though I must

445
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:27,919
Speaker 1: have learned about like the Triangle factory fire nine million times,

446
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:31,639
Speaker 1: I've heard about Chernobyl a million times. Um so much

447
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 1: as a race from American education or maybe I'm just stupid,

448
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:36,240
Speaker 1: but I think, no, no, no, this one, this one

449
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 1: is not in the textbooks that we tend to get. Yeah. Yeah,

450
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:42,680
Speaker 1: I'm sure if you get like Ocean training, they talk

451
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 1: about this motherfucker. But I intend to do By the way,

452
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:49,720
Speaker 1: oh good good, we need that for podcasting. There's a

453
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 1: room full of poison behind you, So it's just poisonous

454
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:59,439
Speaker 1: takes thoughts um all that? No, I mean there's literal

455
00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:03,440
Speaker 1: poison as in the room behind you. Where because why

456
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:05,160
Speaker 1: we can't go out on the balcony. And that's why

457
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:07,480
Speaker 1: we can't go out on the balcony. It's full of poison.

458
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 1: I forgot. Yeah, I always want to go. Wait, don't

459
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 1: tell me that I gained so much joy from the

460
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:19,120
Speaker 1: poison room. Wait, where is the poison room in relation?

461
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:23,680
Speaker 1: It's it's it's just just there. Why is that a

462
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:27,160
Speaker 1: poison room? Anyway? Speaking of poison rooms, let's get back

463
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 1: to Bow Paul, India. So as we already talked about

464
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:32,399
Speaker 1: the first group to blow the whistle about the dangers

465
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 1: of the Beau Paul Union carbide plant, where the plant

466
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:37,440
Speaker 1: workers themselves, as I already said, they were organized into

467
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:40,439
Speaker 1: two competing trade unions, which is an unusual state of

468
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: affairs that existed primarily because it made life easier for

469
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: the plant management. After the leak in nineteen two, one

470
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:50,000
Speaker 1: of the trade unions printed six thousand posters and put

471
00:27:50,040 --> 00:27:52,439
Speaker 1: them up all around the city of bow Pall warning

472
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:55,680
Speaker 1: denizens of the dangers at their door. One union leader

473
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:58,160
Speaker 1: went on a hunger strike at the entrance of the factory.

474
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:01,720
Speaker 1: According to Eckerman's paper quote, the result was that all

475
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:04,960
Speaker 1: political and trade union meetings inside the factory were banned.

476
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:08,000
Speaker 1: One you see staff member burnt the principal union's tent

477
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 1: in the ensuing scuffle. Several people were injured. The two

478
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:14,000
Speaker 1: trade union leaders were laid off. Meetings and processions were

479
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:17,280
Speaker 1: held throughout the city, as the plant staff regarded the

480
00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 1: plant as one of the safest ships in the modern

481
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:22,400
Speaker 1: industrial fleet. The demonstrations were considered to be a campaign

482
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 1: by agitators wanting higher salaries and shorter working hours, not agitators.

483
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:33,639
Speaker 1: Not agitators wanting more money and a better quality of life. Yeah,

484
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 1: and I guess again, so are what is the state

485
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 1: of unions in India at this point? I mean better

486
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 1: than the state of unions in the US and two

487
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:48,760
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen, Oh good, Well, I mean that's saying practically nothing.

488
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 1: But you know what, the world's got what three years left? Anyways,

489
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 1: year and a half. I was thinking that in two years,

490
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:58,320
Speaker 1: I was like, I was thinking about, like, at this point,

491
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: why would you follow your dreams? You know, like you

492
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:04,360
Speaker 1: might as well just like write it out I follow

493
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 1: my short term dreams of like having enough intoxicans. That's

494
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 1: the only way, right, Like you just had to like, uh,

495
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:12,960
Speaker 1: if you if you don't have many kids, just live

496
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: fast because you can't. Like, don't go back to school now, Yeah,

497
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:19,479
Speaker 1: don't go back to school. Yeah, don't. Don't read a

498
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 1: book instead of going to school, invest in some really

499
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 1: good bolt cutters, one of those like five pairs that

500
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:30,600
Speaker 1: won't conduct electricity, so you can snap through like the

501
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 1: gates of a rich person's house, even if it's like

502
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 1: mind or electrified or something like that. You guys have

503
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 1: the scariest advice in the entire world. I'm just saying,

504
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:43,240
Speaker 1: a better investment than school at this point is increasing

505
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 1: your ability to do take vengeance. Every other conversation we

506
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: have like you should buy a weapon. I mean, bolt

507
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 1: cutters aren't inherently a weapon. They have a lot of

508
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 1: you to bring a weapon on a bus to Phoenix.

509
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm not going to do that. Phoenix

510
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: is a dangerous city. I find it to be dangerous.

511
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:05,840
Speaker 1: It's filled with Arizonans, the deadliest people in America other

512
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: than Floridians and Texans and Oklahoma's. Yeah, they were fast

513
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 1: and Louisianans. They're a very high concentration of Hooters in

514
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 1: Phoenix as well, because I went I went to a

515
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:20,680
Speaker 1: Hooters and then across the street there was Scottish Hooters,

516
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 1: but it went by like some other names scooters, scooters.

517
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 1: Oh you mean like the tilted kilt. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

518
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of those in the Southwest. Yeah. We

519
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 1: had a lot in Texas to wild yep. So with

520
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: the union's hobbled, Union Carbide management was free to lay

521
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 1: off even more experienced workers and cut even more costs

522
00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:42,520
Speaker 1: in how their plant was managed. One example, the best

523
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 1: industry practices for storing methyl isocyanate m i C was

524
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 1: to store it in fifty two gallon drums and have

525
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 1: like a lot of small drums rather than one gigantic

526
00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 1: storage bat. This was considered safer because it reduced the

527
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 1: amount that could get out during an individual leak. But

528
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 1: Union Carbide was like, all those fifty two gallon drums

529
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 1: are gonna cost a shipload of money and it's going

530
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 1: to take more time. Let's just put it in one

531
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 1: gigantic container, even though that's way less safe and is

532
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 1: explicitly what every expert on the chemical says, no, don't

533
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,400
Speaker 1: fucking do that. We're let's just do it anyway because

534
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 1: it will save us some bucks. So uh. Union carbides

535
00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 1: own technical manual for m I C warned that this

536
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: was literally the most dangerous way to store the substance.

537
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 1: While small drums of the gas do not require refrigeration,

538
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 1: it is absolutely necessary for safe bulk storage. Unfortunately, the

539
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 1: refrigeration unit designed to do this was, according to her

540
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 1: later report by the Indian government's chief scientists, small and ineffective.

541
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 1: In late night, it was turned off entirely after plant

542
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: managers talked with their bosses at the American headquarters of

543
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:50,640
Speaker 1: Union Carbide and determined it was unnecessary. The refrigeration unit

544
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 1: was determined to be unnecessary because shutting it off would

545
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 1: save money on electricity and allow them to reroute the

546
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 1: free onto other parts of the plant and save even

547
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 1: more money. Connecting this refrigeration unit added whole pennies to

548
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 1: the shareholder value of Union Carbides. This is like the

549
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: equivalent of just like lighting Titanic lifeboats on fire, Yeah,

550
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 1: just cause need more room. It's like lighting those lifeboats

551
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:19,680
Speaker 1: on fire as you like do shots with the captain

552
00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 1: to convince him to get as close to that iceberg

553
00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 1: as he can. Say. Yeah, like it's like you want

554
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: to throw a beer, adding taking body shots off the

555
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 1: cap ridiculous. So Union Carbides manual for m I C

556
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:37,400
Speaker 1: did not include any guidance as to what employees might

557
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 1: do in the event of a massive leak. Fairly little

558
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 1: was known about the chemical, so the manual simply suggested

559
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 1: dumping it into a spare storage tank. It noted there

560
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 1: may be other situations not covered above. The situation will

561
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 1: determine the appropriate action. We will learn more and more

562
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 1: as we gain actual experience, which is a great thing

563
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 1: to hear in the manual for a deadly chemical producing

564
00:32:56,400 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 1: By the time, my god, love it of it, this

565
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:05,480
Speaker 1: is there's no and and I'm imagining there's no like

566
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 1: formal regulatory body that would say oversee something like this.

567
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 1: Are they even pretending to have any sort of regular

568
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:19,200
Speaker 1: like regulation. They're definitely pretending. Okay, well, I'm like at

569
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 1: least show some some effort. Oh yeah, they fake it

570
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 1: a little bit, not a whole lot, because again, like

571
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:28,560
Speaker 1: it's India and rules are a lot less strict there. Uh,

572
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 1: but they do fake it to an extent. Um and

573
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:34,720
Speaker 1: I want to note because like I've spent a decent

574
00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 1: amount of time in India and I really love the country. Um.

575
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of very valid criticism about how

576
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 1: loose a lot of the rules about worker health and

577
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: safety are and have been going back decades. Totally fair

578
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 1: to hit them on that. There were also and are

579
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 1: also a lot of people in the country who carry

580
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 1: a lot about reforming that. And in the case of

581
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 1: the ticking time bomb that was the Bopaul Union carbide plant,

582
00:33:56,480 --> 00:33:59,200
Speaker 1: there was a heroic journalist in addition to those like

583
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 1: a union workers who tried to blow the whistle. Uh. Now,

584
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:06,240
Speaker 1: this journalists name was Raj Kumar Kaswani and he wrote

585
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:09,280
Speaker 1: for a local Hindu weekly paper called the Septak Report.

586
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 1: And in late night two he started receiving tips about

587
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 1: the poor maintenance and constant leaks inside the Union carbide facility.

588
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:19,480
Speaker 1: Rush Kumar began to investigate and became convinced that an

589
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 1: apocalyptic danger awaited the city of beau Pal. In September

590
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:25,840
Speaker 1: and October, he ran a series of articles with the

591
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 1: most heartbreaking headlines imaginable. The first article was titled save

592
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:34,759
Speaker 1: Please Save this City. The second article was titled Beau

593
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:37,640
Speaker 1: Paul on the Mouth of a Volcano, and the third

594
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 1: was titled if you don't understand, you will be wiped

595
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:47,200
Speaker 1: out rash. Yeah, like that's you really can be more directed.

596
00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:51,920
Speaker 1: A title no Buried leads with this guy. Yeah, he's

597
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 1: setting the tone. I mean, I'm glad that he did,

598
00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:58,400
Speaker 1: because especially it sounds like the union workers are already

599
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:01,080
Speaker 1: out here saying this is happen. And then it's just

600
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:04,160
Speaker 1: like if the company and the culture and the local

601
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 1: government care, you're going to die. Like seriously, not kidding,

602
00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 1: We're all about to fucking die. Please read, please, love

603
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:25,799
Speaker 1: God do something. Uh. As we all know from the

604
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 1: last couple of years, especially nobody listened to roj Kumars. Uh. Yeah.

605
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:33,799
Speaker 1: By nine four m I C production at the Beau

606
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 1: Paul plant was down to about a quarter of its height.

607
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:38,960
Speaker 1: Cost cutting features had reduced maintenance shifts to roughly a

608
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:41,520
Speaker 1: quarter of their necessary frequency and robbed the plant of

609
00:35:41,560 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 1: most of its highly trained staff. Mr Parik, a former

610
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:48,720
Speaker 1: project manager at the plant, reported the whole industrial culture

611
00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:50,840
Speaker 1: of union carbide at Bow Paul went down the drain.

612
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:53,919
Speaker 1: The plant was losing money. Top management decided that saving

613
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: money was more important than safety. Maintenance practices became poor

614
00:35:57,160 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: and things generally got sloppy. The plant didn't seem to

615
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:01,279
Speaker 1: have a few sure, and a lot of skilled people

616
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 1: became depressed and left as a result. And this was

617
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 1: the situation on December two when things started to go

618
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 1: badly wrong at the plant. And how many people are

619
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:16,399
Speaker 1: working at this plant? Oh, not that many people. There's

620
00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 1: only six folks on staff. Yeah. The first sign of

621
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 1: this was in pressure readings from the gas tanks that

622
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 1: registered at five times the normal levels sum one day.

623
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:29,840
Speaker 1: The senior operator on duty said he did not consider

624
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:32,720
Speaker 1: this a problem. Another worker who saw the same readings

625
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:35,359
Speaker 1: half an hour later, had the same reaction. He later

626
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 1: recalled to the New York Times there was a continual

627
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 1: problem with instruments. Instruments often didn't work, so they didn't

628
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:44,760
Speaker 1: they didn't see like it was showing elevated levels of gases,

629
00:36:45,080 --> 00:36:47,279
Speaker 1: but it kind of always did because all of the

630
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:49,400
Speaker 1: instruments were garbage, so they just didn't think of it

631
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:52,920
Speaker 1: as a problem. Now, it might have helped in this

632
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:55,800
Speaker 1: case if the Bopaul plant had enjoyed a complex computer

633
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:59,359
Speaker 1: monitoring system to check for things like gasses and This

634
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:02,240
Speaker 1: is where I and out the Union Carbide operated a second,

635
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:06,840
Speaker 1: almost identical chemical plant producing m I C in West Virginia.

636
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:08,920
Speaker 1: It was also known as the sister plant to the

637
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 1: one in Bopaul, and that plant did in fact have

638
00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:15,440
Speaker 1: a sophisticated computer monitoring system to quickly warn staff members

639
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:19,480
Speaker 1: about leaks. Meanwhile, in India, Union Carbide preferred to rely

640
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 1: on workers to notice leaks when their eyes started a

641
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:27,240
Speaker 1: water from all the poison in the air. Oh my god, yeah,

642
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:33,920
Speaker 1: I laughter about what's coming is like the like like

643
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 1: the anxious reaction that comes because of the horrors. But

644
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: like I wonder which country the company cared about. More

645
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:45,759
Speaker 1: impossible to say, no, need to bring race into this, Jamie, Yeah, no, no, no,

646
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:48,120
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. That was a reach and I and I

647
00:37:48,160 --> 00:37:53,160
Speaker 1: can't apologize enough. At am December, two workers in the

648
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 1: methyl isocyanate structure on FET from the control room noticed

649
00:37:57,120 --> 00:38:00,160
Speaker 1: that their eyes had started to water. One operator US

650
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:03,960
Speaker 1: named Singh spotted a liquid drip and a yellowish white gas.

651
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:07,240
Speaker 1: He went to the control room at PM and told

652
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:09,399
Speaker 1: his boss that they had another M I C leak.

653
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:12,359
Speaker 1: His boss and Mr Quareshi told him that he would

654
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:16,080
Speaker 1: look into it after having his tea. Uh, this is

655
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:20,880
Speaker 1: literally Titanic, Robert not to not to, but it's like

656
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 1: Iceberg right ahead, and he's like, okay, let me just

657
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:28,200
Speaker 1: finish my beer first. This is going to make Titanic

658
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:32,359
Speaker 1: look like a ski do crash. Well, Titanic in retrospect,

659
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:35,320
Speaker 1: like a lot of rich people died, and we can't

660
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:38,640
Speaker 1: you know, we can't fault We can't fault the ocean

661
00:38:38,680 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 1: for claiming the rich. No, no, I'm I'm alright with

662
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:45,799
Speaker 1: that actually, but sorry, not not not to say that yet. Anyway,

663
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:49,479
Speaker 1: no one looked into the league until after am, once

664
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 1: management had finished with their tea. And while we can

665
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 1: and should mock management for waiting until after tea to

666
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:57,439
Speaker 1: check in a poison gas leak, I should note here

667
00:38:57,480 --> 00:38:59,359
Speaker 1: that it's likely none of them would have known what

668
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 1: to do if they had checked earlier. The positions of

669
00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:05,440
Speaker 1: second and third shift maintenance supervisor had been eliminated several

670
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:08,239
Speaker 1: days before the disaster, so there was actually no one

671
00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 1: on duty whose job it was to fix this stuff.

672
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:13,480
Speaker 1: In fact, on the night of December second, there was

673
00:39:13,520 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 1: not a single trained engineer at the Union Carbide plant

674
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 1: in Bo Paul, so the people whose job it was

675
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 1: to maintain the plant did not know how to maintain it.

676
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:24,880
Speaker 1: They knew nothing about M I C or fostergene, the

677
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 1: two deadly gases stored by the ton and enormous cylinders.

678
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:30,920
Speaker 1: The supervisor was initially convinced that no leak was possible

679
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,799
Speaker 1: because they'd stopped production for the night. The New York

680
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:37,640
Speaker 1: Times spoke to several of these workers. Quote. M. K. Jane,

681
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:39,720
Speaker 1: an operator on duty on the night of the accident,

682
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 1: said that he did not understand large parts of the plant.

683
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:44,279
Speaker 1: His three months of instrument training and two weeks of

684
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:46,800
Speaker 1: theoretical work taught him to operate only one of several

685
00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:49,840
Speaker 1: methyl isocyanate systems. He said. If there was a problem

686
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:51,839
Speaker 1: in another M I C system, I don't know how

687
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:54,720
Speaker 1: to deal with it, said Mr Jane, a high school graduate.

688
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:58,399
Speaker 1: Raman Khan, the operator who washed the improperly sealed pipe

689
00:39:58,400 --> 00:40:00,800
Speaker 1: a few hours before the accident, said, I was trained

690
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:03,799
Speaker 1: for one particular area and one particular job. I don't

691
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:06,440
Speaker 1: know about other jobs. During training, they just said, these

692
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 1: are the valves you were supposed to turn, This is

693
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:10,760
Speaker 1: the system in which you work. Here are the instruments

694
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:15,520
Speaker 1: and what they indicate that's it. Okay, Yeah, so the whole,

695
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 1: the whole training was done away with. Yeah, basically. So

696
00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:25,120
Speaker 1: in order to talk about how the disaster started and

697
00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:28,080
Speaker 1: what happened next, I'm going to quote from a National

698
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:32,200
Speaker 1: Institute of Health article on what happened because it kind

699
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 1: of describes it mechanically. Quote. The vent gas scrubber, a

700
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:40,160
Speaker 1: safety device designed to neutralize toxic discharged from the m

701
00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:42,920
Speaker 1: I C system, had been turned off three weeks prior.

702
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 1: Apparently a faulty valve had allowed one ton of water

703
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:48,319
Speaker 1: for cleaning internal pipes to mix with forty tons of

704
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:51,280
Speaker 1: m I C. A thirty ton refrigeration unit that normally

705
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 1: served as a safety component to cool the m I

706
00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:55,239
Speaker 1: C storage tank had been drained of its coolant for

707
00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 1: use in another part of the plant. Pressure and heat

708
00:40:57,520 --> 00:41:00,120
Speaker 1: from the vigorous exothermic reaction in the tank contain you

709
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 1: to build The gas flare. Safety system was out of

710
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 1: action and had been for three months. At around one

711
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:08,719
Speaker 1: am December third, loud rumbling reverberated around the plant as

712
00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 1: a safety valve gave way, sending a plume of m

713
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:15,840
Speaker 1: I C gas into the early morning air. Jesus Christ

714
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 1: now it didn't kill the workers at the plant. This

715
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 1: is not like Chernobyl. It's much worse because the gas,

716
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:27,240
Speaker 1: which was heavier than air, floated down to the slums

717
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:30,360
Speaker 1: surrounding the chemical plant and into the lungs of thousands

718
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:34,240
Speaker 1: upon thousands of sleeping citizens. The wind blew the poisonous

719
00:41:34,280 --> 00:41:36,760
Speaker 1: gas as far and wide, covering an area of almost

720
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:40,160
Speaker 1: forty square kilometers. Hundreds choked to death in their sleep

721
00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:44,800
Speaker 1: as their lungs literally liquefied and drowned them. Thousands more awoke, eyes, burning,

722
00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 1: mouth's frothing, driven nearly mad by a choking terror. Few

723
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: of us can imagine. Nearly four thousand people died on

724
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 1: the first night, as many people as the World Health

725
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:57,360
Speaker 1: Organization estimates will die in total from the Chernobyl disaster

726
00:41:57,440 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: over the next several decades. Jesus Christ. Yeah, kind of frustrating.

727
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:06,760
Speaker 1: We don't learn about this one. It's yeah, extremely telling

728
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:10,640
Speaker 1: that we don't learn about this one. That's oh my god,

729
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:13,719
Speaker 1: four so four thousand and and the poison acts in

730
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:18,480
Speaker 1: a matter of hours. Yeah, jee Now, since m I

731
00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:21,200
Speaker 1: C is twice as heavy as air, children were poisoned

732
00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 1: first and had the most trouble escaping the deadly gases,

733
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:26,719
Speaker 1: and as bad as the leak was, it should have

734
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:29,600
Speaker 1: been easy from most of the victims to escape. A

735
00:42:29,640 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 1: wet cloth over the mouth would have acted as a

736
00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:34,680
Speaker 1: crude gas mask long enough for virtually everyone affected to

737
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:37,400
Speaker 1: climb to higher ground and get above the gas. But

738
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:40,719
Speaker 1: no one in Bopal knew these facts because Union Carbide

739
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:42,840
Speaker 1: had not bothered to spend the money to inform the

740
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 1: citizens about what they might need to do if the

741
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:48,759
Speaker 1: giant poisoned gas plant in their city ever exploded. And

742
00:42:48,840 --> 00:42:53,280
Speaker 1: that wouldn't have even cost anything like barely anything to print. Yeah,

743
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 1: you'd had to print some stuff, and yeah, you just

744
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:58,400
Speaker 1: have to I guess yeah, by one a couple of

745
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:03,080
Speaker 1: ads in a newspaper. So coral doctors were at first

746
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:05,759
Speaker 1: not even aware of what chemical people had been poisoned with,

747
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,000
Speaker 1: because Union Carbide had not bothered to have a little

748
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 1: sit down with any of them either. According to an

749
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 1: India Today report on the disaster, quote, the public siren

750
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:16,960
Speaker 1: was put on around one am, but only for a

751
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 1: few minutes, and after that the muted siren took over.

752
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:22,400
Speaker 1: This was per Carbide procedure, which was evolved to avoid

753
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:25,400
Speaker 1: alarming the public around the factory over tiny leaks. But

754
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:27,520
Speaker 1: in the present case, it was gross negligence that the

755
00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 1: continuous siren was put off. Although it was already known

756
00:43:30,160 --> 00:43:33,399
Speaker 1: by then that M I C was escaping in huge quantities,

757
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:36,640
Speaker 1: it was not until two am, one hour later, that

758
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:39,320
Speaker 1: the public siren was sounded again on full blast to

759
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:43,160
Speaker 1: alert the already terrified, injured, and dying in the city.

760
00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:48,920
Speaker 1: So that's cool. That just seems aggressive at that point, like, yeah,

761
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:53,399
Speaker 1: people know something's up. Yeah, because they're dying by the hunter.

762
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 1: Everyone they know just died. You don't need to turn

763
00:43:56,360 --> 00:44:02,800
Speaker 1: on the siren now, asshole. So um, this is time

764
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:06,640
Speaker 1: for an AD plug. This is a really dark time

765
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:10,319
Speaker 1: for an AD plug. Maybe our darkest AD pivot of

766
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:14,439
Speaker 1: all time. I mean, this is just like devastating. This

767
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:19,479
Speaker 1: is so yeah, it's so crushing. Yeah, well, I mean

768
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:23,200
Speaker 1: I just I don't know. Every day I learned about

769
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:26,880
Speaker 1: something new that was just completely omitted from my education,

770
00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 1: so I could learn misinformation about the founding fathers. And

771
00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 1: it makes me angry, but you know, but you know

772
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:39,280
Speaker 1: what really comforts me in these moments of anger, Products

773
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:43,920
Speaker 1: and services. Products and services. We're back on the fucking train. Baby.

774
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: All right, now some ads, we're back. We're back, and

775
00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: things are not I think things are not going well.

776
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:03,360
Speaker 1: Things are not going great. The alarms have been sounded

777
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:09,120
Speaker 1: after four thousand people have died. Yeah, just you know,

778
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:12,799
Speaker 1: four thousand people or so. Yeah. So in order to

779
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:15,920
Speaker 1: like kind of put together or provide a picture of

780
00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: exactly what was going on and what it was like

781
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:20,560
Speaker 1: to be at ground zero for this, I'm going to

782
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 1: quote from an India Today report quote. The siren was

783
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:27,360
Speaker 1: heard by Sayed Khan as he ran away, leaving his

784
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:29,759
Speaker 1: family coughing and sputtering. By the time he returned in

785
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:32,239
Speaker 1: the morning, his father, mother, and two brothers were dead.

786
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 1: Only a sister survived. Sasa Khan of Jayaprakesh Nagar, who

787
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:38,719
Speaker 1: had fled in blind panic, leaving his wife and four

788
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 1: daughters to the vapors, returned to find all but two

789
00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:44,520
Speaker 1: girls dead. Chiv Narrang, a machine operator at the straw

790
00:45:44,600 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 1: products factory, lost a three month old boy, but seven

791
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:49,520
Speaker 1: of his twelve neighbors, all of whom shared a four

792
00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:52,880
Speaker 1: room l shaped hut, died. Among the dead were Nathu

793
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:55,400
Speaker 1: ram Ka, the owner of the hut, his wife and

794
00:45:55,440 --> 00:45:58,760
Speaker 1: two children, Kuswa died because he couldn't leave his wife's side.

795
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:01,840
Speaker 1: She had just delivered their second child a few hours earlier.

796
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:05,360
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Stories like that are repeated across the

797
00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:08,000
Speaker 1: city of bow Pall to thousands upon thousands of people

798
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:11,600
Speaker 1: and families. Now, the bo Pall accident was the first

799
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:13,839
Speaker 1: time that doctors saw the effective M I C gas

800
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:16,759
Speaker 1: on human beings on at any kind of scale. Those

801
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:18,799
Speaker 1: who died the first day had lungs that were as

802
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 1: much as three times their normal weight. The autopsy team

803
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:24,600
Speaker 1: suffered gas poisoning as they cut open bodies that were

804
00:46:24,640 --> 00:46:28,319
Speaker 1: essentially filled with chemical weaponry. An exact death toll for

805
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:30,560
Speaker 1: the immediate wake of the bow Pall disaster will never

806
00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:33,800
Speaker 1: be known. Estimates rage as high as ten to fifteen

807
00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:37,239
Speaker 1: thousand in the first few days, with another fifteen to

808
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:40,759
Speaker 1: twenty thousand premature deaths over the next twenty years. So

809
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:43,360
Speaker 1: at this point we're looking at thirty to forty thousand

810
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:49,440
Speaker 1: dead conservatively right now. Again, sometimes the death toll of

811
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:56,040
Speaker 1: chernobyl and uh just I mean uh morbid question from me,

812
00:46:56,800 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 1: um the four thousand people who die immediately? Does that

813
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:02,440
Speaker 1: have to do? Would like range with the closeness to

814
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:06,279
Speaker 1: the or or is there any like indication of why

815
00:47:06,320 --> 00:47:09,759
Speaker 1: certain people survived and others didn't? Or these are the

816
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 1: people who you know, mostly they're asleep. They live very

817
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:14,759
Speaker 1: close to where the leak happens, so the gas hits

818
00:47:14,760 --> 00:47:16,800
Speaker 1: them first, and they just choked to death on their lungs.

819
00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:20,000
Speaker 1: And a lot of people, yeah, got hit and got hurt,

820
00:47:20,080 --> 00:47:22,319
Speaker 1: but like got away, many of whom were still hurt

821
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 1: enough that they died within a few days. Um. Others

822
00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:28,560
Speaker 1: just suffered injuries that would kill them five, ten, fifteen

823
00:47:28,640 --> 00:47:33,360
Speaker 1: years later. Um. Yeah. In the immediate wake of the disaster,

824
00:47:33,480 --> 00:47:36,080
Speaker 1: Union Carbides set to work trying to avoid any blame

825
00:47:36,160 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 1: for this calamity their incompetence and mismanagement had brought into

826
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:41,000
Speaker 1: the world. It first tried to shift the blame by

827
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:43,719
Speaker 1: blaming Union Carbide India, claiming that the plant had been

828
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 1: built and was operated wholly by the subsidiary corporation. They

829
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 1: also floated theories that an unknown seek extremist group had

830
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:52,920
Speaker 1: attacked the plant had caused the disaster. Then they blamed

831
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:55,680
Speaker 1: angry employees, essentially trying to shift the blame to the

832
00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:57,920
Speaker 1: union workers who tried to warn them about the plants

833
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:02,160
Speaker 1: issues back in nineteen. They tried to explain an unknown

834
00:48:02,239 --> 00:48:07,840
Speaker 1: seek extreme misgray, like, just blame the sieks. Yeah, let's

835
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:14,879
Speaker 1: just yeah, pretty frustrating, blame the union. So the first

836
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:18,239
Speaker 1: lawsuit against Union Carbide landed on December seventh, less than

837
00:48:18,239 --> 00:48:20,319
Speaker 1: a week after the disaster. It was filed by an

838
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 1: American attorney in the US Court. The first great piece

839
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:26,000
Speaker 1: of journalism on the disaster was published in January by

840
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:28,279
Speaker 1: The New York Times, based on dozens of interviews with

841
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:32,200
Speaker 1: plant workers, Union Carbide representatives, and members of the Indian government.

842
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 1: They were the first paper to report on much of

843
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 1: what I talked about today, the cost cutting, elimination of

844
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: trained personnel, shut down of basic safety equipment, and failure

845
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:43,439
Speaker 1: to warn the community. Quote when you questioned in recent

846
00:48:43,520 --> 00:48:46,240
Speaker 1: days about the shortcomings disclosed in the inquiry by The Times,

847
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:49,480
Speaker 1: a spokesman at the Union Carbide corporate headquarters in Danbury

848
00:48:49,560 --> 00:48:53,000
Speaker 1: characterized any suggestion of the accidents causes a speculation and

849
00:48:53,040 --> 00:49:00,280
Speaker 1: emphasized that Union Carbide would not contribute to that speculation. Cool. Cool, all.

850
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:03,760
Speaker 1: The spokesman went on to state responsibility for plant maintenance,

851
00:49:03,880 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 1: hiring and training of employees, establishing levels of training and

852
00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:13,279
Speaker 1: determining proper staffing levels rest with the plant management. M mmmmm,

853
00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:18,239
Speaker 1: m oh, it's it's actually India's fault. It's actually India's fault.

854
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:23,360
Speaker 1: Let's let's code now. The time spoke with VP GO

855
00:49:23,600 --> 00:49:27,440
Speaker 1: call the ce CEO of the Union Carbide India to

856
00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:30,000
Speaker 1: try and parse out just how independent the so called

857
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 1: subsidiary really was during his interview. They noted quote at

858
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:36,360
Speaker 1: perhaps a dozen points during a two hour interview, he

859
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:38,680
Speaker 1: read his answers into a tape recorder, saying he would

860
00:49:38,719 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 1: inform the parent corporations Danbury headquarters of what he had said.

861
00:49:42,200 --> 00:49:44,120
Speaker 1: He also made notes of some of his comments and

862
00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:46,279
Speaker 1: said he would send him to Danbury for approval by

863
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 1: Union Carbide lawyers. That doesn't sound totally independent investing. I know,

864
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:55,440
Speaker 1: it sounds totally above board. It sounds like standard practice.

865
00:49:55,760 --> 00:50:01,240
Speaker 1: And yeah, it seems seems God it's legit and cool.

866
00:50:01,480 --> 00:50:04,640
Speaker 1: Cannot talk about it. No, it's just so fucked up.

867
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:09,719
Speaker 1: This will not be our dark Yeah, rip roaring funnest episode.

868
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:15,160
Speaker 1: The things that you tell us, Robert, it's upset. Yeah,

869
00:50:15,200 --> 00:50:16,840
Speaker 1: it's not great. And then we're just supposed to go

870
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:21,839
Speaker 1: home after that, you know, go home maybe you get

871
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:26,440
Speaker 1: some bolt cutters, and then they only advice you have

872
00:50:26,600 --> 00:50:30,200
Speaker 1: for coping is to buy bolt cutters. Everybody could use

873
00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:32,719
Speaker 1: a pair of bolt cutters. That's all I'm saying. That's

874
00:50:32,719 --> 00:50:39,680
Speaker 1: all I and Werner Herzog. Now. The New York Times

875
00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:42,799
Speaker 1: further notes that Union Carbide had several direct representatives on

876
00:50:42,840 --> 00:50:45,279
Speaker 1: the board of Union Carbide India, including an e v

877
00:50:45,400 --> 00:50:48,560
Speaker 1: P of the American company. Mr. Gokal confirmed that the

878
00:50:48,640 --> 00:50:52,080
Speaker 1: Union Carbide Board of directors reviewed reports regularly from operations

879
00:50:52,080 --> 00:50:55,319
Speaker 1: in their Indian subsidiary and made numerous safety decisions, such

880
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:57,600
Speaker 1: as the decision to shut down the refrigerator to save

881
00:50:57,680 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 1: power and free on Yeah. In March of nineteen eighty five,

882
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:04,640
Speaker 1: the Indian government passed the Gas Leak Disaster Act, making

883
00:51:04,640 --> 00:51:07,360
Speaker 1: the Indian government the only representative of victims in and

884
00:51:07,400 --> 00:51:10,440
Speaker 1: outside of India. Eventually, the government reached a settlement with

885
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:14,279
Speaker 1: Union Carbide. The company took moral responsibility and paid four

886
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:18,560
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy million dollars to the Indian government. Now,

887
00:51:19,200 --> 00:51:22,040
Speaker 1: this was instantly controversial. For one thing, it was based

888
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:24,479
Speaker 1: on the idea that only three thousand people had died

889
00:51:24,640 --> 00:51:27,520
Speaker 1: and a hundred and two thousand people had been permanently disabled.

890
00:51:27,760 --> 00:51:30,000
Speaker 1: The real figure in both cases was, of course, several

891
00:51:30,040 --> 00:51:34,040
Speaker 1: times that high. The n I H notes quote upon

892
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:36,719
Speaker 1: announcing the settlement, shares of U c C rose two

893
00:51:36,719 --> 00:51:39,880
Speaker 1: dollars per share, or seven percent in value. Had compensation

894
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:41,719
Speaker 1: in Bopaul been paid at the same rate that the

895
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:44,360
Speaker 1: Asbestos as victims were being awarded in U S courts

896
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:47,239
Speaker 1: by defendants, including U c C, which Mind Asbestos from

897
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:50,120
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three to nineteen eighty five, the liability would

898
00:51:50,120 --> 00:51:52,120
Speaker 1: have been greater than the ten billion the company was

899
00:51:52,320 --> 00:51:55,000
Speaker 1: worth and insured for in nineteen eighty four. By the

900
00:51:55,080 --> 00:51:57,120
Speaker 1: end of October two thousand three, according to the Beau

901
00:51:57,160 --> 00:52:01,040
Speaker 1: Paul Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department, compensation had been

902
00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:05,160
Speaker 1: awarded to five thousand, eight hundred people for injuries received

903
00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:08,280
Speaker 1: in fifteen thousand, three d and ten survivors. Of those killed.

904
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:11,480
Speaker 1: The average amount to families of the dead was two dollars.

905
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:19,920
Speaker 1: That doesn't even cover like funeral costs. But sure, and

906
00:52:20,160 --> 00:52:22,160
Speaker 1: when and when things like that happened, especially, you're just

907
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:24,640
Speaker 1: like this is just like PR for them. It's not

908
00:52:25,200 --> 00:52:28,920
Speaker 1: you know, it's just PR. Yeah, it's just just FTPR

909
00:52:29,160 --> 00:52:32,879
Speaker 1: expense of Like, no, I think it's taken care of. Yeah,

910
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:35,719
Speaker 1: the fact that Union Carbi did not care about what

911
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:39,399
Speaker 1: had happened became even clearer UH in the immediate wake

912
00:52:39,600 --> 00:52:42,640
Speaker 1: or in the weeks following the disaster. See when you

913
00:52:42,760 --> 00:52:44,920
Speaker 1: killed ten thousand or so people in the space of

914
00:52:44,920 --> 00:52:47,880
Speaker 1: a handful of days, it tends to be bad for business.

915
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:50,920
Speaker 1: The BUPA plant had already been slated for decommissioning. They

916
00:52:50,920 --> 00:52:53,640
Speaker 1: were slowly winding down production and removing equipment, but there

917
00:52:53,680 --> 00:52:56,280
Speaker 1: were still thousands upon thousands of tons of toxic waste

918
00:52:56,320 --> 00:52:59,600
Speaker 1: and equally toxic pesticide ingredients to be dealt with. Prior

919
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:02,319
Speaker 1: to this disaster, Union Carbide had dumped its waist into

920
00:53:02,360 --> 00:53:05,440
Speaker 1: twenty one unlined pits on the site. Now, this is

921
00:53:05,440 --> 00:53:08,000
Speaker 1: fucked up by modern standards, but it should be said

922
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:10,840
Speaker 1: this was the standard practice in the US back then too.

923
00:53:10,920 --> 00:53:13,920
Speaker 1: So unlike what their failure to install a computer monitoring system.

924
00:53:14,160 --> 00:53:16,920
Speaker 1: We can't put that one down to Union Carbide valuing

925
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:22,160
Speaker 1: Indian lives less than American ones. However, industry wid industry

926
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:26,040
Speaker 1: wide stupidity yea UH. In nineteen seventy seven, though the

927
00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:29,000
Speaker 1: company built three proper solar of operation ponds and started

928
00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:31,680
Speaker 1: piping waste directly in. These ponds had a liner, but

929
00:53:31,760 --> 00:53:34,320
Speaker 1: it was thin and it broke immediately, which allowed the

930
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:37,160
Speaker 1: waste to seep into the ground and eventually into the groundwater.

931
00:53:37,480 --> 00:53:39,719
Speaker 1: Farmers complained that the runoff was killing their cows and

932
00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:43,000
Speaker 1: their crops, and then when the disaster hit, Union Carbide

933
00:53:43,040 --> 00:53:45,719
Speaker 1: abandoned the factory and all of the poison inside it.

934
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:48,920
Speaker 1: There are literally pictures of giant sacks of toxic chemicals

935
00:53:48,920 --> 00:53:51,800
Speaker 1: that they left lying out, unguarded and exposed to the elements.

936
00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:54,440
Speaker 1: Many of those sacks are still lying around the factory

937
00:53:54,640 --> 00:53:58,280
Speaker 1: to this day. The tanks and vats filled with deadly

938
00:53:58,320 --> 00:54:01,640
Speaker 1: poison weren't emptied until nineteen eighty nine. Sixty of the

939
00:54:01,680 --> 00:54:03,920
Speaker 1: tons of the worst waste was finally locked up in

940
00:54:04,040 --> 00:54:11,240
Speaker 1: two thousand five. The vast majority. Yeah so my head,

941
00:54:11,400 --> 00:54:15,960
Speaker 1: my heart, okay, yeah, uh so after this happens is

942
00:54:16,040 --> 00:54:19,160
Speaker 1: the area in fact people aren't allowed to live there

943
00:54:19,239 --> 00:54:21,399
Speaker 1: or people living Oh of course not no, no, nothing,

944
00:54:22,480 --> 00:54:24,959
Speaker 1: That everything was just as bad, and that people were

945
00:54:25,160 --> 00:54:28,560
Speaker 1: moving in. Yeah. The next sort of these huge bags

946
00:54:28,600 --> 00:54:33,040
Speaker 1: of toxic waste, almost nothing was cleaned up the factory remained.

947
00:54:33,080 --> 00:54:36,920
Speaker 1: The poison seeped into the groundwater, and as you might expect,

948
00:54:37,080 --> 00:54:38,920
Speaker 1: leaving all this poison around in the middle of a

949
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:45,080
Speaker 1: densely populated city has had some long term negative consequences. Yeah, shockingly,

950
00:54:45,280 --> 00:54:47,080
Speaker 1: I know. That's that one really threw me for a

951
00:54:47,080 --> 00:54:50,440
Speaker 1: loop to In two thousand eighteen, Atlantic writer A poor

952
00:54:50,520 --> 00:54:53,439
Speaker 1: Va Manda Villi wrote a great article about this called

953
00:54:53,480 --> 00:54:57,080
Speaker 1: the World's worst industrial disaster is Still Unfolding. She traveled

954
00:54:57,080 --> 00:54:59,520
Speaker 1: to on a negar, a neighborhood directly across from the

955
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:01,400
Speaker 1: old chemical a plant. I'd like to read you the

956
00:55:01,440 --> 00:55:04,040
Speaker 1: introduction from her article, as it does a superb job

957
00:55:04,080 --> 00:55:06,520
Speaker 1: of humanizing the long term impact of all this poison.

958
00:55:06,640 --> 00:55:10,120
Speaker 1: Please do From the wooden bed outside her two room house,

959
00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:12,520
Speaker 1: money Be, the grand dam of Anna Nagar, has a

960
00:55:12,560 --> 00:55:15,319
Speaker 1: wide lens on the devastation. Money Be's bed is less

961
00:55:15,320 --> 00:55:17,640
Speaker 1: than two feet from a massive pit that you sec

962
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:20,600
Speaker 1: filled with toxic sludge, close enough to witness the damage

963
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:24,480
Speaker 1: the Ganda Pani dirty water has wrought. Right next door

964
00:55:24,560 --> 00:55:26,680
Speaker 1: is fifteen year old Faiza, who didn't speak for the

965
00:55:26,680 --> 00:55:29,319
Speaker 1: first five years of her life and still has heart palpitations,

966
00:55:29,360 --> 00:55:31,839
Speaker 1: dizzy spells, and headaches. The young woman who grew up

967
00:55:31,840 --> 00:55:34,279
Speaker 1: two doors down Taba suum now has a toddler who

968
00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:36,960
Speaker 1: doesn't eat much or speak or cry and has seizures.

969
00:55:37,320 --> 00:55:40,319
Speaker 1: Down the street is Obie, a spindley legged thirteen year

970
00:55:40,360 --> 00:55:43,000
Speaker 1: old with black pustules all over his body, so painful

971
00:55:43,000 --> 00:55:45,560
Speaker 1: and grotesque that he rarely leaves the house. Across the

972
00:55:45,560 --> 00:55:47,759
Speaker 1: street from him is twelve year old Tasib, who was

973
00:55:47,800 --> 00:55:51,239
Speaker 1: intellectually disabled. And then there's Najma the street sweet young

974
00:55:51,280 --> 00:55:53,600
Speaker 1: woman who lost her mother to tongue cancer and now

975
00:55:53,600 --> 00:55:55,560
Speaker 1: sits in front of her house all day, smiling and

976
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:58,880
Speaker 1: occasionally shouting out guttural gibberous to passer by. And then

977
00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:01,120
Speaker 1: there is the house where one has fused bones in

978
00:56:01,160 --> 00:56:03,160
Speaker 1: her legs and another has a hole in her heart.

979
00:56:04,640 --> 00:56:07,000
Speaker 1: And are they still? Are they still? They're living? They're

980
00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:09,719
Speaker 1: still living in the area Yep yep slum and its

981
00:56:09,760 --> 00:56:11,759
Speaker 1: slums that are around there. This is not where either.

982
00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:13,399
Speaker 1: It's a big city. There's a lot of nice parts

983
00:56:13,440 --> 00:56:16,200
Speaker 1: of Beau Paul. The slums where poor people can afford

984
00:56:16,200 --> 00:56:19,000
Speaker 1: to live, many of them are directly around and surrounding

985
00:56:19,040 --> 00:56:22,600
Speaker 1: the plant right, And the plant is still operational. Or

986
00:56:22,680 --> 00:56:26,000
Speaker 1: is it just there? It's just there, It's nobody's cleaned

987
00:56:26,000 --> 00:56:30,680
Speaker 1: it up there and toxic waste like a fucking like

988
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:34,799
Speaker 1: like an abandoned amusement park that's killing people. Yep, that

989
00:56:34,840 --> 00:56:37,880
Speaker 1: sounds like a horror movie. I would an abandoned amusement

990
00:56:37,920 --> 00:56:41,080
Speaker 1: park that's killing people. Yeah, I didn't see that movie.

991
00:56:41,640 --> 00:56:44,480
Speaker 1: It's like a state in King book. Yeah, absolutely, Okay.

992
00:56:45,239 --> 00:56:49,160
Speaker 1: The current data suggests that forty four communities in India

993
00:56:49,200 --> 00:56:51,840
Speaker 1: at least have had their groundwater corrupted by toxic levels

994
00:56:51,880 --> 00:56:54,840
Speaker 1: of solvents from the old Union Carbide Factory or plant.

995
00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:57,520
Speaker 1: Canadian researchers are in the process of conducting a long

996
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:00,160
Speaker 1: term study and mortality, birth defects, fertility can to are

997
00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:02,839
Speaker 1: another ailments caused by the old plant. The study, which

998
00:57:02,840 --> 00:57:04,920
Speaker 1: has involved upwards of a hundred thousand people to day,

999
00:57:05,040 --> 00:57:07,440
Speaker 1: suggests that folks who were exposed to the gas or

1000
00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:09,680
Speaker 1: to the water near the plant have ten times the

1001
00:57:09,760 --> 00:57:11,960
Speaker 1: rate of cancer compared to other groups. So on a

1002
00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:13,799
Speaker 1: long term basis, the kids who grow up in the

1003
00:57:13,840 --> 00:57:16,000
Speaker 1: slums around the plant and drink the water have the

1004
00:57:16,040 --> 00:57:18,560
Speaker 1: same cancer risk as people who were actually gassed on

1005
00:57:18,600 --> 00:57:22,840
Speaker 1: the night of the disaster. Dal Chemical Company bought Union

1006
00:57:22,840 --> 00:57:25,680
Speaker 1: Carbide in two thousand one. They merged with DuPont in

1007
00:57:25,720 --> 00:57:30,040
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen. To that does sound safe, sounds like

1008
00:57:30,040 --> 00:57:32,760
Speaker 1: everything's going to be fine today. Dow claims that the

1009
00:57:32,800 --> 00:57:35,560
Speaker 1: responsibility for cleaning up the mess Union Carbide left behind

1010
00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:38,200
Speaker 1: lies with Union Carbide India, which is now called ever

1011
00:57:38,240 --> 00:57:41,840
Speaker 1: Ready Industries India. Ever Ready, for their part, blames Union

1012
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:45,640
Speaker 1: Carbide and their owner Dal Chemical. Dow also regularly suggests

1013
00:57:45,640 --> 00:57:47,760
Speaker 1: that the state of Madhya Pradesh should be responsible for

1014
00:57:47,760 --> 00:57:50,160
Speaker 1: cleaning up the site. The state claims they can't afford

1015
00:57:50,240 --> 00:57:52,160
Speaker 1: to do that and has convinced the federal government to

1016
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:55,240
Speaker 1: name Dow in a curative petition demanding one point two

1017
00:57:55,280 --> 00:57:59,440
Speaker 1: billion as restitution for the original inadequate settlement. On their website,

1018
00:57:59,600 --> 00:58:02,440
Speaker 1: DOUST touts the old Union Carbide line that a disgruntled

1019
00:58:02,440 --> 00:58:06,640
Speaker 1: employee caused the accident. They steadfastly refused to admit any responsibility.

1020
00:58:07,040 --> 00:58:10,080
Speaker 1: Quote that acquired shares of Union Carbide in two thousand one,

1021
00:58:10,200 --> 00:58:12,600
Speaker 1: seven years after U c I I became ever Ready

1022
00:58:12,640 --> 00:58:15,840
Speaker 1: Industries India Limited. Union Carbide had no assets in India

1023
00:58:15,880 --> 00:58:17,960
Speaker 1: at the time of the transaction with Dow down ever

1024
00:58:18,000 --> 00:58:22,080
Speaker 1: owned or operated the U c I L plant. Site activists,

1025
00:58:22,120 --> 00:58:24,600
Speaker 1: on the other hand, argue that when dowbot Union Carbide,

1026
00:58:24,600 --> 00:58:26,960
Speaker 1: they assumed all of the company's liabilities as well as

1027
00:58:26,960 --> 00:58:30,440
Speaker 1: his assets. It's unlikely that any satisfactory resolution to the

1028
00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:32,800
Speaker 1: case will be reached as long as Dow slash DuPont

1029
00:58:32,800 --> 00:58:35,160
Speaker 1: continues to have enough money for all of the lawyers.

1030
00:58:35,600 --> 00:58:38,680
Speaker 1: A recent Greenpeace report estimated it would cost thirty million

1031
00:58:38,720 --> 00:58:40,680
Speaker 1: dollars to clean up the remaining waste at the old

1032
00:58:40,800 --> 00:58:44,400
Speaker 1: Union Carbide plant over a period of four years. Last year,

1033
00:58:44,680 --> 00:58:49,720
Speaker 1: Dow DuPont made eight five billion dollars in profits. Cool, well,

1034
00:58:49,760 --> 00:58:52,560
Speaker 1: I mean once if thousand involved, it seems to be

1035
00:58:52,760 --> 00:58:55,919
Speaker 1: like an outstanding thing. I'm wanting to watch a NASCAR race.

1036
00:58:56,000 --> 00:58:59,439
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, I'm like, really DuPont, Oh my god, yeah,

1037
00:58:59,560 --> 00:59:03,240
Speaker 1: big names, big names. Yeah, good good NASCAR suit that

1038
00:59:03,360 --> 00:59:08,400
Speaker 1: DuPont company. Oh yeah, good lord. Well good to know that,

1039
00:59:08,520 --> 00:59:12,080
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred years later, you know, Union Carbide alive,

1040
00:59:12,480 --> 00:59:16,640
Speaker 1: alive and well unlike all of their casualties. Well like

1041
00:59:16,680 --> 00:59:19,400
Speaker 1: thirty years later. Well no, sorry, I was looking at

1042
00:59:19,440 --> 00:59:26,280
Speaker 1: the company was founded in Yeah, they've been around a minute. Yeah, yeah,

1043
00:59:26,360 --> 00:59:29,720
Speaker 1: and I was wondering too. This is again he had

1044
00:59:29,760 --> 00:59:34,160
Speaker 1: another morbid exercise. But uh, if you google Union carbide,

1045
00:59:34,200 --> 00:59:36,680
Speaker 1: I'm like, how much money do they spend trying to

1046
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:41,080
Speaker 1: push those results out of the first Google page? And

1047
00:59:41,160 --> 00:59:44,640
Speaker 1: they managed to get the bill pall disaster is not

1048
00:59:44,720 --> 00:59:51,640
Speaker 1: mentioned at all until uh six results down. Cool. Yeah,

1049
00:59:52,040 --> 00:59:56,160
Speaker 1: so if you're wondering, are they still evil? Yes, well

1050
00:59:56,200 --> 01:00:00,920
Speaker 1: that's great. Well how you feeling a out this all, Jamie?

1051
01:00:01,160 --> 01:00:07,280
Speaker 1: I feel absolutely, I honestly feel sick to my stomach. Uh,

1052
01:00:07,320 --> 01:00:10,760
Speaker 1: this is I mean, I want to do more reading

1053
01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:14,880
Speaker 1: about this um and the fact that yeah, just that

1054
01:00:15,120 --> 01:00:19,080
Speaker 1: I can't believe that there's I mean not to you know,

1055
01:00:19,080 --> 01:00:21,120
Speaker 1: it's kind of false equivalence, but like, why have I

1056
01:00:21,160 --> 01:00:25,160
Speaker 1: seen so many documentaries about the Triangle Factory fire and

1057
01:00:25,240 --> 01:00:29,400
Speaker 1: nothing about like it's just it's upsetting. I mean, Triangle

1058
01:00:29,440 --> 01:00:32,240
Speaker 1: shirtwaist is an important one to understand for like the

1059
01:00:32,280 --> 01:00:35,320
Speaker 1: history of the labor movement in the US, But I

1060
01:00:35,360 --> 01:00:38,720
Speaker 1: think Bo Paul is just as critical because it talks

1061
01:00:38,760 --> 01:00:41,040
Speaker 1: about what's still going on to this day. You know,

1062
01:00:41,200 --> 01:00:45,560
Speaker 1: the you can tie like that horrible garment factory fire

1063
01:00:45,600 --> 01:00:49,120
Speaker 1: in Bangladesh that killed all those people some of the

1064
01:00:49,200 --> 01:00:51,920
Speaker 1: same kinds of things going on in terms of like

1065
01:00:52,040 --> 01:00:54,280
Speaker 1: cost cutting, and just like they don't care as much

1066
01:00:54,320 --> 01:00:58,120
Speaker 1: about those people, so less is done to protect them. Um,

1067
01:00:58,200 --> 01:01:02,640
Speaker 1: that's just kind of what happens. Well, I feel absolutely sick.

1068
01:01:02,720 --> 01:01:06,320
Speaker 1: How do you feel? Uh, you know, I'm gonna I'm

1069
01:01:06,320 --> 01:01:09,280
Speaker 1: gonna pour some more coffee in a little bit. I

1070
01:01:09,320 --> 01:01:11,040
Speaker 1: should have we I don't know if we've mentioned this

1071
01:01:11,080 --> 01:01:13,360
Speaker 1: on Mike Get You've been wearing a fuzzy bathrobe this

1072
01:01:13,400 --> 01:01:17,160
Speaker 1: whole time? Yeah there, Robert, do you remember that time

1073
01:01:17,200 --> 01:01:19,760
Speaker 1: you told me about one of the most horrifying things

1074
01:01:19,760 --> 01:01:22,360
Speaker 1: I've ever heard about in my one human life whilst

1075
01:01:22,440 --> 01:01:26,360
Speaker 1: wearing a fuzzy bathrobe? I mean I read about it

1076
01:01:26,360 --> 01:01:31,160
Speaker 1: whilst wearing a fuzzy bathrobe. I'm glad that you're comfortable.

1077
01:01:31,240 --> 01:01:35,479
Speaker 1: I we we we live in a system in which

1078
01:01:35,600 --> 01:01:39,720
Speaker 1: nightmares are allowed to occur on a daily basis because

1079
01:01:39,880 --> 01:01:43,400
Speaker 1: it's cheaper than trying to prevent them, and in a

1080
01:01:43,480 --> 01:01:49,160
Speaker 1: system that's sociopathic. There are two logical responses products and services,

1081
01:01:49,760 --> 01:01:52,120
Speaker 1: Well those are those are logical for other reasons. But

1082
01:01:52,440 --> 01:01:56,000
Speaker 1: the two logical responses are make yourself comfortable and buy

1083
01:01:56,040 --> 01:02:03,640
Speaker 1: bolt cutters. I'm actually gonna do it. Someday. There's gonna

1084
01:02:03,680 --> 01:02:06,760
Speaker 1: I'm gonna. Okay, well, yeah, no, I I feel I

1085
01:02:06,760 --> 01:02:10,040
Speaker 1: feel terrible, but I love your robe, and I'm going

1086
01:02:10,080 --> 01:02:13,400
Speaker 1: to get some cutters. You can get, you know, decent

1087
01:02:13,440 --> 01:02:16,200
Speaker 1: ones for cheap. It's just the really nice ones won't

1088
01:02:16,240 --> 01:02:19,280
Speaker 1: trigger the alarms or set off the electronics and stuff.

1089
01:02:19,320 --> 01:02:22,920
Speaker 1: So like if you're depending on you know, how the

1090
01:02:23,000 --> 01:02:26,880
Speaker 1: collapse happens. Yeah, I'm just saying, are they small? They are?

1091
01:02:26,920 --> 01:02:29,720
Speaker 1: They like pocket size? I can't say I've ever used any.

1092
01:02:30,200 --> 01:02:32,040
Speaker 1: You can get ones that are small enough to fit

1093
01:02:32,080 --> 01:02:35,040
Speaker 1: in a small backpack that aren't huge. Yeah. Yeah, they

1094
01:02:35,040 --> 01:02:38,760
Speaker 1: have a variety of sizes of bolt cutter's fun. Yeah,

1095
01:02:39,120 --> 01:02:41,880
Speaker 1: I might rhinestone handle. I might. I want to. I

1096
01:02:41,920 --> 01:02:44,920
Speaker 1: want to kind of shrim mine up and personalize it.

1097
01:02:45,400 --> 01:02:50,160
Speaker 1: The revolution should involved rhinestone bolt cutters. I feel strongly

1098
01:02:50,200 --> 01:02:52,840
Speaker 1: about that. I I think that, Yeah, that would be

1099
01:02:53,280 --> 01:02:58,800
Speaker 1: a real, real iconic thing to do. Mhmm yeah. So uh,

1100
01:02:58,840 --> 01:03:02,280
Speaker 1: everyone listening at home, revolt in your own ways definitely

1101
01:03:02,360 --> 01:03:05,200
Speaker 1: consider it a pair of bolt cutters and a fuzzy bathrobe.

1102
01:03:05,520 --> 01:03:09,440
Speaker 1: Um god' sorry about this one. Gang. This was this

1103
01:03:09,640 --> 01:03:13,760
Speaker 1: was a this was extremely heavy. Yeah, it's a lot. Yes,

1104
01:03:14,640 --> 01:03:16,840
Speaker 1: you want to plug your plugables, Jamie. I mean it

1105
01:03:16,920 --> 01:03:20,360
Speaker 1: feels just wrong at this point, but yeah, but everything does.

1106
01:03:20,560 --> 01:03:23,080
Speaker 1: But yeah, I guess we we only have two years

1107
01:03:23,120 --> 01:03:26,440
Speaker 1: to live, so I may as well. Um. Sure, you

1108
01:03:26,440 --> 01:03:29,560
Speaker 1: can listen to the Bechdel Cast with Caitlin and Durante

1109
01:03:29,640 --> 01:03:31,960
Speaker 1: and my podcast about the portrayal of women in movies

1110
01:03:32,040 --> 01:03:36,680
Speaker 1: every Thursday. Uh, you can go see my show Boss

1111
01:03:36,720 --> 01:03:42,080
Speaker 1: Home is Girl in Scotland and in London all summer long.

1112
01:03:42,200 --> 01:03:46,640
Speaker 1: And all that info is on my website Jamie loftus

1113
01:03:47,000 --> 01:03:52,200
Speaker 1: is Innocent dot com and Jamie want his help on Twitter.

1114
01:03:52,360 --> 01:03:56,120
Speaker 1: That's all beautiful. Well, I'm Robert Evans. You can find

1115
01:03:56,160 --> 01:03:58,880
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at I right okay, sometimes tweeting about

1116
01:03:58,880 --> 01:04:01,640
Speaker 1: bolt cutters. You can find this podcast on the internet,

1117
01:04:01,680 --> 01:04:03,640
Speaker 1: along with all of its sources at behind the Bastards

1118
01:04:03,840 --> 01:04:07,000
Speaker 1: dot com. You can find us on the Graham and

1119
01:04:07,120 --> 01:04:11,360
Speaker 1: the tweets at at Bastards pot. You can buy t shirts, cups,

1120
01:04:12,120 --> 01:04:17,040
Speaker 1: um gloves that you can use to along with your

1121
01:04:17,080 --> 01:04:20,800
Speaker 1: new bolt cutters at Publis dot com. Um. Uh, we

1122
01:04:20,840 --> 01:04:23,160
Speaker 1: don't have branded bolt cutters there yet, but I'll talk

1123
01:04:23,240 --> 01:04:24,640
Speaker 1: with Sophie about that. We'll see what we can do.

1124
01:04:25,400 --> 01:04:29,840
Speaker 1: M she's not, she's brilliant to the beautiful, beautiful, Well

1125
01:04:30,240 --> 01:04:33,720
Speaker 1: until next week, stay angry and buy bolt cutters. I

1126
01:04:33,840 --> 01:04:34,439
Speaker 1: love about