Air Pollution: Industrialization

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Imagine waking up one morning after going to bed as healthy as horse, with no eye sight accompanied by a burning sensation, excruciating pain in your lungs that makes it difficult for you to breathe and with no idea what has caused this effect. This was the feeling experienced by over 200, 000 people in Bhopal, India on Dec 3rd, 1984. A pesticide plant run by Union Carbide Corporation, an American company, experienced a gas leak from tanks containing Methyl Isocyanate (MIC). Methyl Isocyanate reacted with water producing toxic gases that spread out towards human settlements causing devastating effects. This is merely one among many other disasters caused by industries. The causes of these disasters and the accountability for the disasters are the main focus of this paper. Air pollution directly affects the health of humans as evidenced by the Bhopal disaster hence it is important to understand the relationship. Even though industries are not the only causes of air pollution, pollution due to industries should be controlled by taking all the safety measures necessary as well as accounting for unintended consequences that may be caused by an error in the equipment.
Lee Davis is a well-known environmentalist who has written a series of books that focus on the environment and how it is changing. In his book, Environmental disasters, he focuses on twentieth century disasters that are man-made. He demonstrates how the individual, industries and government are all contributors to air, water and land pollution that have caused a series of catastrophes over the years. More emphasis is directed to the industrial contribution because Industries have to a higher degree caused most of the human-made disasters. Industrial effects are often ...

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...hts of the people who fall victims of such disasters and ensure that the corporations take responsibility for their mistakes. All human beings have a right to be treated equally. I look forward to a time when people will not have to court to fight for their rights.

Works Cited

1. Davis, Lee. 1998. Environmental Disasters: a Chronicle of Individual, Industrial, and Governmental Carelessness. New York, NY: Facts on File, 1998.
2. "Top Carbide brass held, Anderson released ." The times of India News Service, December 07, 1984.
3. Nandini, Gunewardena, and Schuller, Mark. 2008. Capitalizing on catastrophe: neoliberal strategies in disaster reconstruction. Lanham, Md: AltaMira Press.
4. Rosenberg, Tina. "What the World Needs Now Is DDT."New York Times, April 11, 2004.
5. Subrahmaniam, Vidya. "25 years and still waiting." The Hindu, sec. Opinion, December 02, 2009.

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