The Myth And Its Impact On Development And Aging - 1805 Words

退éˆ  ÃªÅ¾ ªere have been different myths developed with regards to development and aging. The first myth relates to the brain. The myth that people only utilize 10 percent of their brain is an attractive spectacle among psychology scholars and academic aspirants. There have been numerous studies that speculate to the truth concerning the utility of brainpower. Most of the studies have concluded that 10 percent was the appropriate amount. The majority claim is contrasted by a survey that indicates people use only 6 percent of their brain. Neuroscientists that performed a similar study of academic individuals that formed 41 percent of the demand express this claim. The myth has sustained its relevance due to the media that reminds people of their hopes through unconventional means. Published content describing the 10 percent ideology as fact have been circulating as method of uplifting the confidence of the public about their potential. Marketers have played an enormous role i n exploiting their customers through an exaggerated breakthrough that has been elaborated through dubious achievements. The self-improvement accusations seem to exploit the myth in order to manipulate the reaction of the public. Despite the renunciation by the United States National Research Council that a person can utilize more that 10 percent of their brain, many people still believe that the remedy to their ambitions has an easier route. There have been many instances of self-proclaimed improvements fromShow MoreRelatedA Research Study On Successful Aging919 Words   |  4 PagesSuccessful aging is a complicated and multifaceted concept that varies contextually among individuals, disciplines, and even time. Gerontologists have traditionally considered a person to have aged successfully upon having reached old age with their physical health, mental well-being and spirit still intact. Ultimately, successful aging is a matter of personal perspective, largely influenced by an individual s values and experiences. Even those within America s elderly population hold conflictingRead MoreAgeism is Widespr ead in Western Societies1250 Words   |  5 PagesThe aging of society has not significantly changed our perceptions of the elderly. Ageism is widespread in Western societies (Dionigi, et al, 2011). Older adults are seen as boring, grumpy irritable, weak, debilitated, mournful, and most significantly cognitively. These stereotypes which are negative can be allowed by the aged themselves negative self-stereotyping (Dionigi, et al, 2011) and are as well found among specialized caregivers (e.g., Cowan, Fitzpatrick, Roberts, While,2004). The imageRead MoreAging And The Ageing Population Essay2277 Words   |  10 Pageschronical timetable of human aging exists: we all age differently and in terms of change and development, there are more differences among older people than among younger people. Genetics, lifestyle and diseases, all affect the rate of ageing between all individuals† This suggests that growth and development of younger people are more closely related to age than the ageing process of older people. (Carlson, Buskist and Martin, (2000) No single description of adult development will fit everyone. ThisRead MoreAging and Sexuality Essay2548 Words   |  11 PagesMany researchers often ask the question, Is sex more important than life itself? In my opinion, I think it could very well be. The procreation and continuation of our species and it s evolution in life will play powerful roles in our development of our lifespan, health and well-being. The desire and intimacy intinct of a male and a female also contribute to the species success. The measures we take to advertise ourselves to the other sex is whats very species specific but unique when viewingRead MoreAging And The Healthcare System3038 Words   |  13 Pages Aging and Healthcare System in America Meron Biriye GERO 302 6981 Dr. Elaine Nailler March 8, 2015 Aging and Healthcare System in America What is Aging? It is not easy to come up with a working definition of aging; different academics around the world defined ‘aging’ from different perspectives. Based on the collected information I have, I define aging –a multidimensional process of physiological, mental and social changes that occurred over the course of life. Though it is beyondRead MoreDiversity in the Workplace Essay examples1414 Words   |  6 Pagesperspective. All organizations policies, practices and processes that impact on the lives of employees need to recognize the potential benefits that can be derived from having access to range of perspectives and to take account of these differences in managing the workplace. Work systems, organizational structures, performance appraisal measurements, recruitment and selection practices and career development opportunities all have impact on the organizational behavior upon the management of diversity.Read MoreAgeism in Healthcare6728 Words   |  27 Pagesequall y as profound impact on American society. More specifically, this impact is being made on the healthcare system of the US, and the discriminatory practice of â€Å"ageism† that older patients currently face. The purpose of this paper is to explore, analyze, and evaluate both the practice of age discrimination in healthcare and the federal policy issues and efforts that are involved with it. The work begins by providing background information on the current demographics of the aging American populationRead MoreBSHS 345 Week 4 Annotated Bibliography1433 Words   |  6 Pages Annotated Bibliography BSHS/345 Annotated Bibliography Juleen K. Buser, Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development 37.2 (April 2009): 94-104 This article is a great article that relates to African Americans seeking mental health treatment at lower rates than whites. The article states that this disparity can be attributed to attitudes toward services, alternate coping, and differences in care. This article also illuminates biases in counseling. Snowden, Lonnie R, Barriers toRead MoreElderspeak Communication1967 Words   |  8 Pageselevated pitch and volume, greater repetitions, and incorporates a simpler vocabulary and grammar than normal adult speech. Research has shown that the speech pattern used typically with the elderly is based on stereotyping and myth as opposed to the reality of the aging process. A number of researchers have conducted studies where a brief educational program was designed to increase the awareness of Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) regarding their use of elderspeak and strategies that couldRead MoreThe Toxicology Of Cosmetic Chemicals1410 Words   |  6 PagesThe Toxicology of Cosmetic Chemicals; layman’s land is filled with easy-to-digest myth. SOCIETAL CONCERN; Disconnect between scientific knowledge and general public acceptance The ability to effectively communicate the safeties and dangers of chemicals between scientific professionals and the general population has been and continues to be an ongoing concern for both sides. Often, this difficult process of ensuring public safety and confidence in chemical innovation has had a certain void filled

Is There Pressure On Girls To Have Perfect Bodies. From

Is There Pressure on Girls to Have Perfect Bodies From the time little girls are born, the pressure become a beautiful woman begins. Before they arrive home, baby girls are placed in a beautiful cozy blanket, a beautiful pink hat, a camera from that moment the prepping for a beautiful life begins. Throughout their childhoods young women constantly persuaded to sit up, suck it in and smile to look pretty. As early as their first birthdays women are endowed with societies ideology of beauty in the form of a Barbie. With a perfect figure, perfect hair and long slim legs, Barbie becomes a girl’s first real role model. Barbie never ages and always looks great no matter what. Barbie is beautiful and has a tiny waist and an ever so perfect body.†¦show more content†¦(Weiner 2) Claire Mysko an award winning author and expert on body image, leadership and media literacy explains: â€Å"While social media is not the cause of low self-esteem, it has all the right elements to contribute to it. Social media creates an environmen t where disordered thoughts and behaviors really thrive†. (Weiner 2) For most young women with constant use and easy accessibility social media can become an addiction and the ability to become outlet that can either build up / destroy women’s self-esteem. A recent survey of more than 1000 girls in the United States ages 8-17 sponsored by the dove self- esteem fund, showed that 7 in 10 girls surveyed believed that when it came to issues including beauty and body image they did not â€Å"measure up.† Only 10 percent found themselves to be â€Å"pretty enough.†(Sweeney 3) Among women over 18 looking at themselves in the mirror, research indicates the at least 80% are unhappy with that they see. (Fox 5) We are society literally obsessed with being beautiful. Unfortunately female dissatisfaction with appearance or a poor body image being at an early. The latest survey show that young girls are going on diets because they think they are fat and unattractive. (F ox 5) In one American survey 81 % of ten year old girls had already dieted at least once. (Fox 5) By 13 at least 50% of girls areShow MoreRelatedEffects Of Media On Young Girls1654 Words   |  7 PagesMany young girls are worried about what their body looks like and if they are thin enough to be considered beautiful. Over several years the thin bodies that are promoted through magazines, movies, etc. are displayed as the ‘perfect body’. Very few companies and brands do not use Photoshop or women who are considered plus sized models. The thinness of the models that are promoted is unachievable naturally. Media is a key factor in putting this thought into young girl’s minds that they often carryRead MorePersuasive Essay On The Standard Of Beauty1529 Words   |  7 Pagesthrough a list of everything she hates about her body, â€Å"I wish my stomach was flatter, my chest was bigger, my thighs were skinnier, my arms were more toned, and my waist was smaller.† She looks into the mirror, comparing her body to the bodies of her friends, celebrities and the images she sees in magazines. Alyssa does not look like all those girls and this makes her feel gross, insecure and out of place. Beauty standards are so high they create negative body images and women who hate the way they lookRead MoreSociety s Pressure And Promote A Perfect Body Type For Women1179 Words   |  5 PagesSociety’s Pressure to Promote a Perfect Body Type for Women For centuries, the perfect body for women in society has played a significant role. It is an ongoing issue around the world that is a battle between the forces. Everywhere from television, magazines, cosmetics, gym, diet supplements, nevertheless opinions of family and friends. Every day most women struggle with the idea of society, not viewing them as a beautiful person or sex symbols. While others engage in achieving this goal to fitRead MoreDangers Of Peer Pressure On Girls1345 Words   |  6 PagesDangers of Peer Pressure on Girls As a little girl I had much confidence about myself and felt I looked the best from my school as well as many other girls from my school. Nowadays, many girls are pressured into being perfect in a way they feel they will never accomplish. Little girls such as ten year olds have started to show low self-esteem and hate to their body image because of the models that are being constantly promoted. As 10TV stated, â€Å"When you were 10 or 11, you probably didn’t give muchRead MoreThink Of A Beautiful, Ten-Year-Old Girl Standing In The1281 Words   |  6 Pagesten-year-old girl standing in the mirror, clutching her stomach and tears rolling down her cheeks because she is being teased for not being as skinny as the other girls in her class. She looks at the models on TV and envies their skinniness. She wants to look just like them. At ten years old, she starts running after dinner and not eating as much as she use to eat. That beautiful little girl is just like every woman all o ver the world; she is pressured to by the media to have a â€Å"perfect body.’ Women allRead MoreEffects Of Anorexia And Other Eating Disorders914 Words   |  4 PagesWhen people are surrounded by images of young celebrities who are painfully thin-or very slender with large breasts- girls growing up in todays world feel the pressure of having to meet the standards. While trying hard to look just like their famous idols, a lot of those people will fall prey to an eating disorder, and some will even abuse drugs that will help them lose weight. Also it may lead to self-doubt, depression, extreme dieting and even at the worst an eating disorder. Everywhere you goRead MoreMedia s Representation Of Body Image1532 Words   |  7 Pagesinfluence by the media is body image, large number of young women and girls look up to people in the media and are influenced by the way they look. Now days you’re appraised on your attractiveness, the way you look, the way you dress, and es pecially how thin you are. The media’s representation of body image has contributed to the social trend of an unhealthy lifestyle. Women and young girls today are fixated on trying modify the way they look to achieve the perfect body image set by the standardsRead MoreEssay on The Medias Pressure on Women to Maintain a Slender Figure1552 Words   |  7 PagesToday’s media places an extreme amount of pressure on women to maintain a slender figure. Through childhood to adulthood, women are bombarded with images of stick skinny women, and this is the way almost every woman wants to look. Although there are other factors, the media is the primary source of the obsession with being thin. Why has this become such a popular trend? This is what society says is acceptable. It has been proven that these images of perfect women do affect the normal women whoRead MoreSocial Media And Its Effects On Society1447 Words   |  6 PagesLooking in the mirror and not liking what you see is extremely common, among teenage girls especially, but where does it stem from? Is it human nature to see oneself in a negative light? Perhaps it comes from something more tangible, such as one’s surroundings. Everyday, people are exposed to models and celebrities on social media living unrealistic and uncommon lifestyles. Why does everyone insist on striving for these absurd standards? Perhaps it’s because people, predominantly millennials, prideRead MoreThe Influence Of Media Reporting On Society s Perception Of Beauty1730 Words   |  7 Pagesteenage girls. As such, based upon a macro perspective, the societal roles, status and expectations of young women have been impacted negatively. This paper will analyze how the combination of media reporting, socioeconomics and sociocultural factors contribu te to the development of eating disorders as well as how society s perception of beauty has been distorted. This paper will further support the notion that societies perception of a female’s beauty is determined by their perceived body image

Moral Obligation To Protect The Environment - Free Sample Solution

Question: Do we have a moral obligation to protect the environment? Answer: We have the moral responsibility to protect the environment. Environmental protection is governed by our ethical conducts. Ethics refers to the moral principles that govern the actions of individuals. The ethical principle that governs our moral responsibility towards the protection of the environment determines our human obligation, duty, and accountability with regard to the environment, which includes the plants and animals in it. The perspective that human beings are superior to other on- human is the major reason for environmental degradation. According to the environmental ethics, these believe should not apply. The protection of the environment is our moral responsibility for the continuation of life on earth. The aim of the paper is to discuss environmental problems that threaten the existence of life and our moral responsibility to desist from further damage on the environment. In addition, the paper will discuss on the ethical principle that will govern environmental protec tion. Ethics is the primary component that defines an individuals obligation towards the environment. In this case, environmental ethics defines an individuals ethical and moral obligation to conserve the environment. In other words, they are the human values that are valuable to a person that dictate their actions towards the environment. Human beings use this logic to make decisions on whether something is wrong or right. Human values are exclusive to individuals, this enables them to place value on elements in life differently. However, no matter our reasoning, we have a moral responsibility to protect the environment. One of the prime reasons why we should protect the environment is because of the ecosystem. As years have passed by, human beings have discovered that the ecosystem is complex and we are deeply connected to it. Human activities affect the ecosystem through environmental pollution putting organisms on the verge of extinction, this necessitates the need to protect the envir onment. All organisms are interconnected. This means that, if of the organisms is affected in a way, it will inevitably affect the rest, in the long run, human beings included. Human beings share a food chain with the other living organism on earth, if we affect the life f any of them, our economy and quality of life will be substantially affected. In order to secure a quality life, we need to protect the environment for the future generation and for the existence of the other species. In this case, if we continue destroying the environment, we will be contributing to Planetary Extinction placing our survival at risk. Therefore, human beings have a moral and ethical responsibility to protect the environment for our survival and for the survival of other species. Change is imperative no matter the size. The increase in temperature caused by global warming has led to a significant increase in the size of oceans and seas. The increase in temperature affects organisms like coral, as they have to survive in explicit temperatures in order to provide life. Therefore, environmental changes affect on- human and eventually affect our survival. In this case, it is evident that environmental degradation leads to unfavorable outcomes. Thus, we have an ethical and moral responsibility to conserve the environment as we can allow our actions affect the next generation. Human activities have led to issues of resource diminution. In order for s to save the world from extinction, we have a moral responsibility to protect the organisms that are on the verge of extinction due to human activities (Leeuw, Valois, Ajzen Schmidt, 2015). We should have acted responsibly to ensure that no more species are further threatened by human activities. Some of the common activities that are disrupting the landscape and threatening the survival of other species include pollutions (air, water, and land), deforestation, over cultivation, and overpopulation just to mention a few. Resource depletion is the major cause of extinction, in the near future; there will be no enough food for all the species on earth. As a result, we have a moral obligation of proactively conserve the environment (Hoffman, Frederick Schwartz, 2014). Lack of adherence to ethical practices in environmental activities has led to the decline in the world economy; this has led to the formulation of world treaties to try to save the situation. Our existence depends on biological assortment (Steg, Bolderdijk, Keizer Perlaviciute, 2014). The ecosystem and species are disappearing at a high rate because of human activities. The disappearance is a substantial threat to the quality of life, our economies, and above all, our existence. Based on this argument, we have a moral responsibility to steward towards environmental protection. Therefore, human beings have a moral obligation to conserve the environment in order to make certain our survival and the survival of other species. We should also focus on the world economy in our effort to conserve the environment as it is substantially affected by our human activities (Crimston, Bain, Hornsey Bastian, 2016). One of the main reasons for environmental degradation is the unethical consideration and the opulent mode of viewpoint. The unethical opulent view denies the present conservation of the environment as it allows waste and extravagance. Other than this perception, some people are caught up in their self-interest deviating from their moral obligation of environmental protection. The destructive human behaviors are the major cause of the environmental problems we are experiencing today. The destruction is facilitated by self-interests and unethical practices. The unethical nature of human beings has given rise to a problem like a climate change, deforestation, and pollution, which has threatened our existence (Keizer et al. 2016). Environmental problems have affected the quality of life, most economies have been substantially affected by environmental degradation. The most economically affected are the poor countries bringing the quality of life much lower, this are some of the major cha llenges we are facing all over the world, hence, we all have a moral obligation to conserve the environment for the next generation. In addition, waste disposal is another major concern when it comes to environmental protection. Substances and objects we discard negatively affect the environment. While the problem of garbage is an issue, the toxic chemicals from the waste we discard affect the environment. Some of the major substances that negatively damage the environment include oils, cleaning agents, and batteries just to mention a few. By practicing ethics, human beings can prevent further damage to the environment. One of the ethical considerations is to practice recycling. Recycling involves the re- use of some or all of these substances in attempts to conserve energy, hence protecting the environment (Howell Allen, 2017). Another issue leading to the dwindling of the ecosystem is the issue of human population and urbanization. Over populations leads to habitat destruction where an area no longer supports animals and plants that the area could originally carry. In addition, human activities like the expansion of roads and agricultural practices are the major causes of environmental degradation. Some of these activities lead to the extinction of species, these calls for drastic measure to end some of these practices in order to safeguard our survival and the survival of the other organisms (Gjrv, 2017). Global warming is the worlds leading environmental concern (Quigley Lyons, 2017). One of the effects of global is the rise in temperature leading g to the melting of polar ice leading to a rise in the sea level. Global warming has a negative impact on the quality of life; environmental issues like deforestation cause Global warming and pollutions just mention a few (Cortina Conill, 2016). In addition, with the current natural disasters like storms, earthquakes, and tsunamis, the world is experiencing the consequences of negative human activities. One of the leading causes of global warming is the burning of fossil fuels, which emit excess carbon to the atmosphere. In order to reduce carbon emission to the atmosphere, human beings need to practice using alternative sources of energy like wind and electricity. In addition, it is advisable t plant trees. Planting trees are beneficial at it helps in the reduction of the amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Overall, the prime p hilosophical issue contiguous the environment is on whether we should only place our importance on the environment based on how it affects us or we should place worth on the environment it for its own sake. The contending views are biocentrism and anthropocentrism. However, the protection of the environment is our moral obligation, which should be governed by ethics (Weiss, 2015). In conclusion, it is imperative to protect the environment. One of the reasons for protecting the environment is that the disruptions human beings have on the environment have placed organisms on the verge of extinction. Environmental degradation threatens the existence of people and animals. Human beings owe the environment a moral obligation to conserve it as most of the environmental degradation comes from human activities. In this case, protecting the environment simply means that we are trying to protect humanity. Most of the pollutions especially water pollution's affects sea creatures like fish, which we later consume, this means that, if we release toxic substances like lead to water sources, we will be ingesting the same toxic substances. Therefore, human beings have a moral responsibility to the environment; in this case, we owe the world the steward to take care of it. References Weiss, E. B. (2015). Our rights and obligations to future generations for the environment.The American Journal of International Law,84(1), 198-207. Quigley, C. F., Lyons, R. (2017). The Role of Care in Environmental Education. InExploring Emotions, Aesthetics and Wellbeing in Science Education Research(pp. 249-267). Springer International Publishing. Gjrv, G. H. (2017). Tensions Between Environmental, Economic and Energy Security in the Arctic. InNorthern Sustainabilities: Understanding and Addressing Change in the Circumpolar World(pp. 35-46). Springer International Publishing. Howell, R., Allen, S. (2017). People and planet: Values, motivations and formative influences of individuals acting to mitigate climate change.Environmental Values,26(2), 131-155. Ruepert, A., Keizer, K., Steg, L., Maricchiolo, F., Carrus, G., Dumitru, A., ... Moza, D. (2016). Environmental considerations in the organizational context: A pathway to pro-environmental behaviour at work.Energy Research Social Science,17, 59-70. Crimston, D., Bain, P. G., Hornsey, M. J., Bastian, B. (2016). Moral expansiveness: Examining variability in the extension of the moral world.Journal of personality and social psychology,111(4), 636-653. Cortina, A., Conill, J. (2016). Ethics of Vulnerability. InHuman Dignity of the Vulnerable in the Age of Rights(pp. 45-61). Springer International Publishing. Ruckert, J. H. (2016). Generation conservation: Childrens developing folkbiological and moral conceptions of protecting endangered species.Early Education and Development,27(8), 1130-1144. De Leeuw, A., Valois, P., Ajzen, I., Schmidt, P. (2015). Using the theory of planned behavior to identify key beliefs underlying pro-environmental behavior in high-school students: Implications for educational interventions.Journal of Environmental Psychology,42, 128-138. de Andreotti, V. O. (2014). Soft versus critical global citizenship education. InDevelopment education in policy and practice(pp. 21-31). Palgrave Macmillan UK. Hoffman, W. M., Frederick, R. E., Schwartz, M. S. (Eds.). (2014).Business ethics: Readings and cases in corporate morality. John Wiley Sons. Steg, L., Bolderdijk, J. W., Keizer, K., Perlaviciute, G. (2014). An integrated framework for encouraging pro-environmental behaviour: The role of values, situational factors and goals.Journal of Environmental Psychology,38, 104-115.

Lord Of Flies Essays (2020 words) - English-language Films

Lord Of Flies This was one of the most interesting books I have ever read. It is very addictive and very well written. Though I am a slow reader, it did not take long for me to finish it. I spent four days reading this book and on weekends I put it down during meals. Lord of the Flies kept my interest with very little slow moving dialogue and lots of vivid description. The thing I probably liked the most about Lord of the flies was the theme of the story. This topic was very intriguing. It dealt with many flaws and desires of human nature, and how devastating these factors van be to a culture with no directions or rules to follow. I enjoyed how the story showed that even the youngest and most innocent of humans strive for power over everything and will stop at nothing until he achieves that power. The theme shows the greed that has been bred into all humans. The characters were probably the second most interesting element in Lord of the Flies. All British boys in this story portray a savagery and sadistic nature to which all but a few succumb. The other boys are the only symbol of sanity on the island. There is also a very interesting conflict between Ralph and Jack. Actually I might say it was a struggle between good and evil. The beginning of their struggle stems from the very start of the novel when Ralph is elected chief over Jack. Jack and his hunters eventually form their own group apart from the others. Uncivilized to say the least, his savages are totally stripped of what society has impressed upon them. Ralph demands peace on the island but to no avail. The turning point of the novel occurs when Jack and his hunters have a feast to celebrate breaking away from Ralph and forming their own tribe. During the sadistic event, the boys are invited to join Jack and many accept. Everyone begins to dance and lose touch with reality and all civilization, and when Simon crawls out of te forest with his message about the beast, he himself is mistaken for it and is torn apart by the frenzied children. At this point Ralph loses most of his control over almost all the kids, and Jack begins to take over. After the feast, things get worse for Ralph and his remaining followers. Jack and his warriors attack them one night and steal their source of fire ? Piggy's glasses. The next day Ralph, Piggy and Samneric journey to Castle Rock to try to talk some sense into the savages, but they don't succeed. Piggy still holding to the conch, desperately tries to be heard over the scuffle but Roger, the most evil of all the hunters, heaves an immense boulder upon him, crushing both Piggy and the symbol of sanity and order ? the conch. The next day Jack organizes a manhunt for Ralph. The leader of the savages sets the bushes on fire in an attempt to flush him put. The fugitive is chased across most of the island and finally collapses at the feet of a naval office who was attracted by the smoke. William Golding stated that the theme of Lord of the Flies as "an attempt to trace the defeats of society back to the defects of human nature". The only thing I disliked about this book is that sometimes Golding's writing style was a little hard to follow. The main problem was that the boy's talk was hard to understand. This problem appeared in few spots, however, and for the most part the book was easy to read. There are many themes in the novel: the aspects of social activities, basic needs of society, ecological balance and use of resources, the problem of evil in man. These all themes were very well revealed. Especially the problem of evil in man and the basic needs of society are very well showed. He 3 main characters of the novel to my mind are: Ralph, Jack and Piggy. Ralph is an attractive boy and a natural leader, the sort of intelligent, well-adjusted, athletic boy who easily might become the idol of his schoolmates. We meet him in the first chapter as he leads the way out of the jungle while Piggy lumbers after him. That he is fair-haired suggests that he is a child of fortune, one who is blessed by nature with grace, strength, and luck. There is

How to Write Amazing Posts With This Awesome Blog Writing Checklist - CoSchedule Blog

How to Write Amazing Posts With This Awesome Blog Writing Checklist Blog If you didnt blog or write content you wouldnt be here, right? We all use to improve our content projects to blow our blogs up with traffic, conversion, and hundreds of grateful and loyal readers. No one remembers the brainiac who said this sacramental phrase Content is the king (rumors have it, it was Bill Gates); but we do our best to create content that helps us reach goals to appear on Googles top 10. Table of Contents: Check a Category Check Lifetime Check Keywords Check the Headline Check the Intro Check the Text Check the Conclusion Check Engagement Check the Language Choose a Featured Image Increase the Texts Value Check Visual Media Add Links Add Content Upgrades Check SEO Set Authorship Check Technical Aspects Synchronize It Test It Promote It Publish It is the perfect all-in-one marketing calendar platform to manage your entire blogging editorial calendar. And with Task Templates, you can create reusable checklists to make sure you never miss a step. Then, use Discussions to manage communication and collaboration between writers, designers, and project managers. Combined with a seamless WordPress integration for automated publishing, it's your go-to destination for creating and promoting every blog post.Start your free 14-day trial and manage your blog better than ever before. 21-Step Blog Writing Checklist doesn't let you miss any small but important detail for making your compelling content, while also winning your readers' hearts. So, here it goes. This blog writing checklist is great to go through every time you get ready to publish a new piece of content. Step 1. Check A Category It's as clear as day that your blog has many categories, and I know you know  how to choose them. Before publishing new content, make sure you choose a relevant category and tags for it. They'll increase traffic and engagement by improving the user's experience and helping search engines index it the right way. Things to check for: Is it relevant? Are tags present? Step 2. Check Lifetime You know what you'll be posting on your blog in the future. It's good to understand how this particular post will relate to your future content. Write every post, keeping in mind its role for your blog, your product, and your business. It's good to have timeless content on your blog. Things to check for: Does it lead to your next post? Is it timeless? Does it meet your objectives? Step 3. Check Keywords I'm not going to teach you how to choose keywords for your content or how to build a semantic core for your blog, but it's important to make sure your keywords are relevant to your content. Try using high volume keywords (for titles, headings, and subheadings) and long-tail (for body content) keywords in your posts. You know the benefits of including long-tail keywords  in your content. Don't ignore them. Things to check for: Are your keywords relevant? Do you have a high volume of keywords? How about long-tail keywords? Step 4. Check The Headline Two out of 10 people will read your post after reading the headline. A weak headline will ruin your chances of creating content that converts. That's why there are  so many guides, tutorials, and tools to help bloggers make their headlines resplendent. Here at , the free  headline analyzer scores quality and rates the SEO value of your headlines, making them clickable and shareable. Before publishing your content, make sure the headline is an appropriate length and that it has emotional words  to capture the attention of readers, bringing you traffic and conversion. Examples of emotional words  in headlines: how to, fast, easy, best, review, tips. These words will help visitors understand that the content will solve their problem and provide useful information. Things to check for: Do your headlines match the style? Is it short and meaningful? Does it reveal the topic? Will it attract and interest readers? Does it have keywords? Are emotional words  present? Step 5. Check The Intro Introductions help visitors decide whether they'll continue reading your content or not. Make your content intro attractive by writing a hook and using the APP method. The APP method in introductions: A – Agree:  Pitch an idea the reader will agree with. P – Promise:  Promise you'll show how to solve the problem. P – Preview: Make clear what you want your readers to learn. Things to check for: Is the APP method present? Is a hook present? Does it have keywords? Step 6. Check The Text Specialists still argue about the best blog length because there is no right answer. Just make sure the length of your post is enough to cover the topic and that it meets your objectives. When you use closely related words (synonyms) of your main keyword, you'll make it easier for Google to identify and it'll show as relevant in its search engine results pages. Google your main keyword and check the â€Å"related† terms to understand what synonyms to use. They drive a high volume of search traffic; otherwise, your post  might not be mentioned in suggestions. Things to check for: Is the length appropriate for this type of content? Are keywords in the subheadings and in bullet lists? Are there synonyms of your main keyword? Is it compelling for both readers and search engines? Did you add a call to action in the conclusion? Step 7. Check The Conclusion "Visitors who don’t click don’t convert."  - Neil Patel Let's face it: If you create content, your goal is conversion. It's cool that readers like your content. It'd be cooler if they did something with it, wouldn't it? Help them! Your content marketing will not survive without a  call  to action, so make sure it's present in your post before publishing it on your blog. Plus, your conclusion should synthesize the information you shared in your content. CTA variants: Question:  to increase comments. Invitation to click or check:  to increase conversion. Invitation to read related articles:  to increase a crawl rate. Things to check for: Does it have a strong CTA? Will it answer the question "So what?" Does it synthesize the points? Step 8. Check Engagement No comments needed, I suppose. We write for people, so we should try  to engage with them. Then they will know what to do next: comment, share, subscribe, or download. Make sure your blog post engages with your target audience. Things to check for: Is it written as if you wrote it for one specific person? Does it teach how to solve the problem? Will it provide your insight? Are comments enabled? Step 9. Check The Language Edit your content, make it sound natural and readable (1–2-sentence paragraphs work for online), add bucket brigades (aka â€Å"words and phrases that keep people on your page†), and speak the same language as your audience. A little practice: Can you find the bucket brigades in this article? While working with guest writers, be sure their stuff  is free of plagiarism. A tool like Grammarly's plagiarism checker can help you out quickly. Things to check for: Does the language sound natural? Are the paragraphs short? Do you have bucket brigades in it? Did you check for grammar mistakes, typos, and logical contradictions in arguments? Have you read the post out loud to catch weird wording? Does your voice fit the tone of the blog? Did you check for plagiarism? Step 10. Choose A Featured Image Okay, one more confession from me: I really like choosing featured images for my blog posts! It's a ritual. The featured image can both attract and frighten readers, and that's why many bloggers sometimes get stuck. To ease the task of choosing a brilliant image for your content, keep in mind that it should be part of your design. It should also keep to the tone of your post and show your personality. Creativity is what makes us who we are.  And, as Henri Matisse said, it takes courage. With no designer on board, you can try images licensed for commercial use (Creative Commons) or discover resources with free but professional looking pictures. Things to check for: Are the images high quality? Are they  eye-catching? How about relevant? Are they  properly credited? Step 11. Increase The Text's Value I've learned that we should use at least one image for every 350 words of content to make it more readable and attractive for visitors, as they often do not have time or patience to read lo-o-o-ong, though interesting, articles. Images, graphs, videos, photos, quotes, tables, and diagrams- they can all help you increase the text's value. Things to check for: Does it have visual media where appropriate? How about quotes and tweetable content? Step 12. Check Visual Media In the footsteps of the previous step (sorry for tautology), make sure your visual elements meet the above features. It's unacceptable to ignore quality, relevance, copyright, and optimization if you aim to write high-quality content. Things to check for: Are  the visual media high quality? Are they relevant to the content? Do they violate copyright? (If so, change it.) Do they fit the design of your blog? Are they optimized? Step 13. Add Links When powerful resources link to your content, it's a sign for Google to rate you higher. And when you link to cool websites, it helps your readers trust you more.  Links build your online reputation, so make sure to add them to your blog writing checklist before you click publish. Don't forget about internal linking, too, since  it improves your SEO and guides readers to where they should click next. Things to check for: Are there internal links? How about external links? (Are they relevant and reputable?) Do they all work? Does it contain TOO many links? (If so take out some.) Do the links open in a new tab? (If so, good.) Are all required attributes added? (dofollow, nofollow, etc.) Step 14: Add Content Upgrades I bet you've noticed that cute block invite in this post or others that invited you to get a free download in exchange for your email. We call that a content upgrade. It's a consistent way to grow an email list. A tool as easy as LeadPages allows you to do that. Summarize key points from your post into a worksheet, template, infographic, or poster- it's up to you what type and format you choose for your upgrades. Things to check for: Is it appealing? Will it help your audience become better at what they do? Does the content upgrade link work? Step 15. Check SEO Try as you will, content marketers are not able to ignore SEO factors. This mortal combat leads to nothing, as content marketing + SEO = love forever: They complement each other, helping Internet marketers be friends with Google. So, check all SEO aspects of your content before publishing. Things to check for: Are the URLs short  with your slug containing the keyword? Are meta tags present? (Check title, description, alt-tag for images, and keywords.) How about sharing buttons that work and display content correctly? Step 16. Set Authorship It doesn't matter if you invite guest bloggers to create content for  your blog or if you have an in-house team of writers- make sure you always name the author of your content. Are you the author? Perfect!  Your name will sound much better than just "admin" or "webmaster", don't you think? Things to check for: Is the author named? Does the author have a bio? Is the author's image in Gravatar or do you have a way to manage their profile picture? Step 17. Check Technical Aspects Check your content in different browsers to see whether it looks good and works well. Big files can be hard to open or download. Things to check for: Does the content look good in all browsers and mobile devices? BrowserStack can  help you out with testing. Does it have oversized files? (If so, fix.) Is it easy to open and/or download? Are metrics for further analysis set? Are the semantic core and key phrases present? Step 18. Synchronize It Thinking in the logical sense, bloggers won't find it hard to determine the perfect day and time for publishing content. Holidays are a dead duck since user activity is low; so, it would be wise to set a schedule and use a marketing calendar to manage your blog and social media content. Things to check for: Don't publish and promote during holidays. Are you publishing posts during your users' highest activity? Are you setting a schedule of publishing to maximize the reach? Step 19. Test It You'll get a clearer picture of changes or improvements your content might need when you test it. Things to check for: Compare your content with competitors' to make sure it's more interesting and informative. Show it to several colleagues who didn't work on it. Share it with users inside your target audience to get feedback. Step 20. Promote It Start promoting your content before you publish by sending teasers and previews to chats, forums, and communities where your audience lives. Plus, you can send it to thought leaders, asking them to review and share it with their followers after you publish it. It would be wise to have a promotion plan in advance so you can start it once the content goes live on your blog. Things to check for: Share  teasers and previews to resources on platforms where your target audience meets. Organize a â€Å"premiere† for bloggers and thought leaders to get reviews. Make a promotion plan after publishing. Step 21. Publish It Phew! That's it. It seems your content is ready to see the light and hit the Internet. So, it's high time to click the â€Å"Publish† button to release your post into the world. There you have it. This blog writing checklist seems heavy, but guess what? You know ALL of the  steps. But you might just forget to tick them off the blog writing checklist. Let's try to repeat this checklist in short: Specify its place:  Check the topic, category, keywords, and tags. Write it right:  Draft an emotional headline, introduce it with a hook, use body with H2–H3 subheadlines, rock number and bulleted lists, edit for short paragraphs, check for plagiarism, and write a strong conclusion with a  call to action. Make it beautiful:  Use natural language, featured images, visual elements, and authorship. Make it engaging and compelling. Help them find it:  Use links, meta tags, synchronization, key phrases, and synonyms. Let them share it:  Make it browser and mobile friendly, test it, promote  it, and share it. Be sure to tick off all the points in the blog writing checklist before publishing your content. You'll get the results you want to achieve. You've got this! How to Write Amazing Posts With This Awesome Blog Writing Checklist Blog If you didnt blog or write content you wouldnt be here, right? We all use to improve our content projects to blow our blogs up with traffic, conversion, and hundreds of grateful and loyal readers. No one remembers the brainiac who said this sacramental phrase Content is the king (rumors have it, it was Bill Gates); but we do our best to create content that helps us reach goals to appear on Googles top 10. Table of Contents: Check a Category Check Lifetime Check Keywords Check the Headline Check the Intro Check the Text Check the Conclusion Check Engagement Check the Language Choose a Featured Image Increase the Texts Value Check Visual Media Add Links Add Content Upgrades Check SEO Set Authorship Check Technical Aspects Synchronize It Test It Promote It Publish It Get This Checklist in a PDF If youd prefer to keep this checklist on-hand, download this free PDF:How To Write Amazing Posts With This Blog Writing ChecklistCreate Your Own Checklists With Task Templates in is the perfect all-in-one marketing calendar platform to manage your entire blogging editorial calendar. And with Task Templates, you can create reusable checklists to make sure you never miss a step. Then, use Discussions to manage communication and collaboration between writers, designers, and project managers. Combined with a seamless WordPress integration for automated publishing, it's your go-to destination for creating and promoting every blog post.Start your free 14-day trial and manage your blog better than ever before. 21-Step Blog Writing Checklist doesn't let you miss any small but important detail for making your compelling content, while also winning your readers' hearts. So, here it goes. This blog writing checklist is great to go through every time you get ready to publish a new piece of content. Step 1. Check A Category It's as clear as day that your blog has many categories, and I know you know  how to choose them. Before publishing new content, make sure you choose a relevant category and tags for it. They'll increase traffic and engagement by improving the user's experience and helping search engines index it the right way. Things to check for: Is it relevant? Are tags present? Step 2. Check Lifetime You know what you'll be posting on your blog in the future. It's good to understand how this particular post will relate to your future content. Write every post, keeping in mind its role for your blog, your product, and your business. It's good to have timeless content on your blog. Things to check for: Does it lead to your next post? Is it timeless? Does it meet your objectives? Step 3. Check Keywords I'm not going to teach you how to choose keywords for your content or how to build a semantic core for your blog, but it's important to make sure your keywords are relevant to your content. Try using high volume keywords (for titles, headings, and subheadings) and long-tail (for body content) keywords in your posts. You know the benefits of including long-tail keywords  in your content. Don't ignore them. Things to check for: Are your keywords relevant? Do you have a high volume of keywords? How about long-tail keywords? Step 4. Check The Headline Two out of 10 people will read your post after reading the headline. A weak headline will ruin your chances of creating content that converts. That's why there are  so many guides, tutorials, and tools to help bloggers make their headlines resplendent. Here at , the free  headline analyzer scores quality and rates the SEO value of your headlines, making them clickable and shareable. Before publishing your content, make sure the headline is an appropriate length and that it has emotional words  to capture the attention of readers, bringing you traffic and conversion. Examples of emotional words  in headlines: how to, fast, easy, best, review, tips. These words will help visitors understand that the content will solve their problem and provide useful information. Things to check for: Do your headlines match the style? Is it short and meaningful? Does it reveal the topic? Will it attract and interest readers? Does it have keywords? Are emotional words  present? Step 5. Check The Intro Introductions help visitors decide whether they'll continue reading your content or not. Make your content intro attractive by writing a hook and using the APP method. The APP method in introductions: A – Agree:  Pitch an idea the reader will agree with. P – Promise:  Promise you'll show how to solve the problem. P – Preview: Make clear what you want your readers to learn. Things to check for: Is the APP method present? Is a hook present? Does it have keywords? Step 6. Check The Text Specialists still argue about the best blog length because there is no right answer. Just make sure the length of your post is enough to cover the topic and that it meets your objectives. When you use closely related words (synonyms) of your main keyword, you'll make it easier for Google to identify and it'll show as relevant in its search engine results pages. Google your main keyword and check the â€Å"related† terms to understand what synonyms to use. They drive a high volume of search traffic; otherwise, your post  might not be mentioned in suggestions. Things to check for: Is the length appropriate for this type of content? Are keywords in the subheadings and in bullet lists? Are there synonyms of your main keyword? Is it compelling for both readers and search engines? Did you add a call to action in the conclusion? Step 7. Check The Conclusion "Visitors who don’t click don’t convert."  - Neil Patel Let's face it: If you create content, your goal is conversion. It's cool that readers like your content. It'd be cooler if they did something with it, wouldn't it? Help them! Your content marketing will not survive without a  call  to action, so make sure it's present in your post before publishing it on your blog. Plus, your conclusion should synthesize the information you shared in your content. CTA variants: Question:  to increase comments. Invitation to click or check:  to increase conversion. Invitation to read related articles:  to increase a crawl rate. Things to check for: Does it have a strong CTA? Will it answer the question "So what?" Does it synthesize the points? Step 8. Check Engagement No comments needed, I suppose. We write for people, so we should try  to engage with them. Then they will know what to do next: comment, share, subscribe, or download. Make sure your blog post engages with your target audience. Things to check for: Is it written as if you wrote it for one specific person? Does it teach how to solve the problem? Will it provide your insight? Are comments enabled? Step 9. Check The Language Edit your content, make it sound natural and readable (1–2-sentence paragraphs work for online), add bucket brigades (aka â€Å"words and phrases that keep people on your page†), and speak the same language as your audience. A little practice: Can you find the bucket brigades in this article? While working with guest writers, be sure their stuff  is free of plagiarism. A tool like Grammarly's plagiarism checker can help you out quickly. Things to check for: Does the language sound natural? Are the paragraphs short? Do you have bucket brigades in it? Did you check for grammar mistakes, typos, and logical contradictions in arguments? Have you read the post out loud to catch weird wording? Does your voice fit the tone of the blog? Did you check for plagiarism? Step 10. Choose A Featured Image Okay, one more confession from me: I really like choosing featured images for my blog posts! It's a ritual. The featured image can both attract and frighten readers, and that's why many bloggers sometimes get stuck. To ease the task of choosing a brilliant image for your content, keep in mind that it should be part of your design. It should also keep to the tone of your post and show your personality. Creativity is what makes us who we are.  And, as Henri Matisse said, it takes courage. With no designer on board, you can try images licensed for commercial use (Creative Commons) or discover resources with free but professional looking pictures. Things to check for: Are the images high quality? Are they  eye-catching? How about relevant? Are they  properly credited? Step 11. Increase The Text's Value I've learned that we should use at least one image for every 350 words of content to make it more readable and attractive for visitors, as they often do not have time or patience to read lo-o-o-ong, though interesting, articles. Images, graphs, videos, photos, quotes, tables, and diagrams- they can all help you increase the text's value. Things to check for: Does it have visual media where appropriate? How about quotes and tweetable content? Step 12. Check Visual Media In the footsteps of the previous step (sorry for tautology), make sure your visual elements meet the above features. It's unacceptable to ignore quality, relevance, copyright, and optimization if you aim to write high-quality content. Things to check for: Are  the visual media high quality? Are they relevant to the content? Do they violate copyright? (If so, change it.) Do they fit the design of your blog? Are they optimized? Step 13. Add Links When powerful resources link to your content, it's a sign for Google to rate you higher. And when you link to cool websites, it helps your readers trust you more.  Links build your online reputation, so make sure to add them to your blog writing checklist before you click publish. Don't forget about internal linking, too, since  it improves your SEO and guides readers to where they should click next. Things to check for: Are there internal links? How about external links? (Are they relevant and reputable?) Do they all work? Does it contain TOO many links? (If so take out some.) Do the links open in a new tab? (If so, good.) Are all required attributes added? (dofollow, nofollow, etc.) Step 14: Add Content Upgrades I bet you've noticed that cute block invite in this post or others that invited you to get a free download in exchange for your email. We call that a content upgrade. It's a consistent way to grow an email list. A tool as easy as LeadPages allows you to do that. Summarize key points from your post into a worksheet, template, infographic, or poster- it's up to you what type and format you choose for your upgrades. Things to check for: Is it appealing? Will it help your audience become better at what they do? Does the content upgrade link work? Step 15. Check SEO Try as you will, content marketers are not able to ignore SEO factors. This mortal combat leads to nothing, as content marketing + SEO = love forever: They complement each other, helping Internet marketers be friends with Google. So, check all SEO aspects of your content before publishing. Things to check for: Are the URLs short  with your slug containing the keyword? Are meta tags present? (Check title, description, alt-tag for images, and keywords.) How about sharing buttons that work and display content correctly? Step 16. Set Authorship It doesn't matter if you invite guest bloggers to create content for  your blog or if you have an in-house team of writers- make sure you always name the author of your content. Are you the author? Perfect!  Your name will sound much better than just "admin" or "webmaster", don't you think? Things to check for: Is the author named? Does the author have a bio? Is the author's image in Gravatar or do you have a way to manage their profile picture? Step 17. Check Technical Aspects Check your content in different browsers to see whether it looks good and works well. Big files can be hard to open or download. Things to check for: Does the content look good in all browsers and mobile devices? BrowserStack can  help you out with testing. Does it have oversized files? (If so, fix.) Is it easy to open and/or download? Are metrics for further analysis set? Are the semantic core and key phrases present? Step 18. Synchronize It Thinking in the logical sense, bloggers won't find it hard to determine the perfect day and time for publishing content. Holidays are a dead duck since user activity is low; so, it would be wise to set a schedule and use a marketing calendar to manage your blog and social media content. Things to check for: Don't publish and promote during holidays. Are you publishing posts during your users' highest activity? Are you setting a schedule of publishing to maximize the reach? Step 19. Test It You'll get a clearer picture of changes or improvements your content might need when you test it. Things to check for: Compare your content with competitors' to make sure it's more interesting and informative. Show it to several colleagues who didn't work on it. Share it with users inside your target audience to get feedback. Step 20. Promote It Start promoting your content before you publish by sending teasers and previews to chats, forums, and communities where your audience lives. Plus, you can send it to thought leaders, asking them to review and share it with their followers after you publish it. It would be wise to have a promotion plan in advance so you can start it once the content goes live on your blog. Things to check for: Share  teasers and previews to resources on platforms where your target audience meets. Organize a â€Å"premiere† for bloggers and thought leaders to get reviews. Make a promotion plan after publishing. Step 21. Publish It Phew! That's it. It seems your content is ready to see the light and hit the Internet. So, it's high time to click the â€Å"Publish† button to release your post into the world. There you have it. This blog writing checklist seems heavy, but guess what? You know ALL of the  steps. But you might just forget to tick them off the blog writing checklist. Let's try to repeat this checklist in short: Specify its place:  Check the topic, category, keywords, and tags. Write it right:  Draft an emotional headline, introduce it with a hook, use body with H2–H3 subheadlines, rock number and bulleted lists, edit for short paragraphs, check for plagiarism, and write a strong conclusion with a  call to action. Make it beautiful:  Use natural language, featured images, visual elements, and authorship. Make it engaging and compelling. Help them find it:  Use links, meta tags, synchronization, key phrases, and synonyms. Let them share it:  Make it browser and mobile friendly, test it, promote  it, and share it. Be sure to tick off all the points in the blog writing checklist before publishing your content. You'll get the results you want to achieve. You've got this!

Who Is To Blame essays

Who Is To Blame essays The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller, takes place in the small village of Salem, Massachusetts during the 1692 witch trials. Reverend Parriss young daughter, Betty, lies in a coma-like trance in her bed. Several townspeople gather at the Reverends home seeking answers to rumors about devil worship. Is Betty possessed by the devil or a victim of witchcraft? Earlier in the day, Reverend Parris caught Abigail Williams and a few other girls dancing in the forest with Tituba, a black slave from Barbados. He believes they were conjuring up spirits. Abigail is a major character in the story. Her parents were killed by Indians when she was very young. She was raised by her uncle, Reverend Parris; but, unfortunately, she grew up without much love or nurturing. Abigail Williams is responsible for many of the tragedies that occur during the witch trials because of her never-ending lies, bitter jealousy, and expert manipulation of others. Abigail is a skilled liar. In fact, almost every word that comes from her mouth is a lie. When Reverend Parris questions her about dancing and conjuring up sprits in the forest, she explains, Uncle, we did dance, let you tell them I confessed it - and Ill be whipped if I must be. But theyre speaking of witchcraft. Bettys not witched (Miller 10). Abigail knows she will be hanged if the townspeople believe she practiced witchcraft; so, in order to protect herself, she admits to dancing but denies conjuring up sprits. Abigail continues to lie by falsely accusing some of the villagers of conspiring with the devil. In a hysterical outburst, she yells, I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil! (Miller 50). Abigail knows exactly what she is doing. She lies about the villagers to protect herself from being punished, and she lies about the villagers to retaliate ...

Illegal immigrants Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Illegal immigrants - Essay Example Those who favor amnesty for illegal aliens, specifically those crossing the southern border do not seem to realize that a crime has been committed and not, as they might have you believe, one without a victim. The massive numbers of illegal aliens pouring across mainly the southern border has and continues to cause substantial economic, social and physical harms to legal citizens. These harms occur predominantly to those who are among the most vulnerable segments of the population, minorities, children and the poor. Simply enforcing the laws presently on the books and deporting illegal aliens is an economic necessity that would also result in decreased crime rates. Illegal immigrants receive more from public monies than they contribute which lowers the standard of living for legal citizens. Illegal immigrants contribute greatly to the overall population growth and health care, education and employment are the most impacted. Salaries are driven down by illegal immigrants willing to work for much less while their children, illegal and legal, overcrowd the schools. It’s the U.S. taxpayer who is sent the bill for their health care services as well. In addition, the large influx of illegal aliens burdens the already inadequate number of units classified as affordable housing and other welfare resources such as energy, water and land usage (â€Å"Illegal Immigration†, 2003). If Congress were to put the country’s interests ahead of its own, it would pass an illegal immigration bill which grants no amnesty. Congress should also pass legislation amending the Immigration and Nationality Act eradicating the idea that children born of illegal aliens are automatically citizens. That privilege should be reserved for children of legal immigrants. Congress should also criminalize illegal entry into the United States which would force government administrators and health workers to report these people to the

World History Since 1945 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

World History Since 1945 - Essay Example The writers advocate for total relook into the various governmental systems which are both embedded in totalitarianism and aloof to the social realities of ordinary masses. Thus, both books are radical and transformative in scope. The books cry out for change which is aimed at the social and economic lives of the people. Smith (2010) reckons that Belli’s ‘The Country under My Skin’ is a powerful memoir entailing both love and war. The Nicaraguan, Giaconda Belli, presents quite powerfully, her eye-openness to social realities facing the people of Nicaragua as well as her association with the Sandinistas using the rider of love and war to expose totalitarianism. In the book, she categorically illuminates on her present life with her American husband as well as children and seemingly compares this to Nicaragua with a passionate appeal. It is at the time when the poet meets Panamanian dictator Omar Torrijos in the year 1978 that she sets out the book; The Country under My Skin. Gicoonda Belli describes political battles of emancipation that the country of Nicaragua went through since the years 1970s. She brings it out quite powerfully using her personal experiences especially with the authorities at that time and irrationalities around the country that were transformational (Smith 2010). She thus brings out a powerful juxtaposition in her quality writing exploring in details her adventure while working in the field of advertisement and later getting involved in politics. Saten (2010) observes that her poem creates a vantage entry point into the Sandinista Guerilla Movement from quite a young age. This involvement makes her transition into the unknown away from the comfort zone and the social as well as political security that she was always involved in and it is at this point that she brings out the spirit of activism in her (Staten 97). Using these experiences she exposes government indifferences to the plight of the

The One Scene That Sealed Titanics Fate Essay Example for Free

The One Scene That Sealed Titanics Fate Essay Titanic is thought to be one of the most iconic films to ever hit theaters. According to the film industry, the film by James Cameron falls into the realm of an epic romance/disaster genre. Released in 1997, Titanic was an international box office sensation, due to the director providing equal importance to history, fiction, and romance. The film is set in April of 1912, where Jack Dawson played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Rose DeWitt Bukater played by Gloria Stuart and Kate Winslet share a love story that cannot be broken. The movie also gives a historical overview of what happened that dreadful night. This critical analysis of the film Titanic provides an overview that the innovative mode of storytelling (flash back and other techniques) can portray both a love story and the historical background while using a dissolve editing method, in which â€Å"the end of one shot gradually merges into the beginning of the next. The effect is produced by superimposing a fade-out onto a fade-in of equal length of imposing one scene over another† (Petrie and Boggs 160). This editing effect was used at the beginning of the movie, in which at 21:03, the wreckage of the Titanic is seamlessly and effortlessly transformed into the beautiful masterpiece of a ship that it once was. This effect is also used when Jack and Rose are standing together â€Å"flying† on the edge of the Titanic, later to be transformed back into the ship wreck. This scene brings the audience back into the present and shocks them back into the harsh reality that the scene was merely a memory from Rose, and no longer the reality (Titanic1997). The editing in Titanic is truly remarkable, bringing the audience from the future into the past, shocking the audience by showing both first-class and lower-class struggles, and showing not only the love story between Rose and Jack, but the life and death of the Titanic and the two thousand people aboard. Through the use of other film techniques such as editing and camera work, set design, imagery and color, James Cameron created one of the most influential and moving works of art the film world has seen. The editing style and technique brings new life to the cinematography world, and â€Å"rejects the norms of modern Hollywood style† (Butka). In all film elements, visual effects, cinematography, color palette, editing, sound design, and music, contributes to the film as a whole. Cameron, â€Å"who has been pushing the boundaries of the Hollywood classical cinema since The Terminator, finally reached a career high point with Titanic’s synthesis of compelling storytelli ng and dexterous style and technique† (Butka) Visual effects, color, imagery, and set design play an important role in all forms of movie and television. These elements are the core foundation of the overall feeling that the audience experiences when watching a particular film. One particular element of film that impacts the story line is the setting of the scenery. Setting may â€Å"often seem unobtrusive or be taken for granted, it is an essential ingredient in any story and makes an important contribution to the theme of total effect of the film† (Petrie and Boggs 82). The setting of a film should be carefully analyzed because of the effects it has on the interrelationships of the characters, plot, and overall general feeling that the movie brings out in its audience. In Titanic, the setting plays a major role in the fact that the first class citizens were held to a higher standard that the lower class citizens. This set the mood for the rest of the film and sets up the segregation that separates Jack and Rose. The col ors also provide a strict divide between the upper and lower classes aboard the Titanic. The royalty wore brighter, more vibrant colors, as well as more flashy materials, whereas the lower class wore much more torn clothing, all of which were dark and dirty colors. These elements ultimately set the tone for the rest of the movie, and would be a constant struggle for Rose and Jack to keep their bond strong. James Cameron put an emphasis on the difference between these classes in order to give the audience the sense of segregation. James Cameron is a critically acclaimed film director known for some of the biggest box-office hits of all time. A science-fiction fan as a child, Cameron â€Å"went on to produce and direct films including The Terminator, Aliens and Avatar. He has received numerous Academy Awards and nominations for his often large-scale, expensive productions† (Biography Editors). His most noted work, 1997\s Titanic, became the first film â€Å"to earn more than $1 billion and landed 14 Academy Award nominations. Cameron took home three Oscars himself for the project: Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Picture† (Biography Editors). To re-create one of the greatest disasters at sea in history, â€Å"James Cameron had a special studio built in Mexico, which featured a 17-million-gallon water tank and the 775-foot replica of the Titanic,† this proved to help the film be a successful blockbuster hit (Biography Editors). James Cameron’s techniques used in Titanic becam e immensely popular as the film became popular. Cameron’s own â€Å"documentary urge was so intense, that he created new diving and photographic equipment – at an extraordinary expense for his studio – to achieve textural authenticity by recording and presenting the eighty-five-year-old wreck of his subject. The film, then, like so many other fictional films, says the ultimate compliment to the documentary form: Cameron uses the real thing to inform his reel thing† (Petrie and Boggs 468). The main purpose behind editing a film is to keep the film in continuous motion, regardless if the time periods switch rapidly, much like in Titanic, where Rose goes from being a seventeen year old girl, to a one-hundred year old woman explaining the history of the Titanic as she remembers it. The editing techniques that were used were ultimately used to shock the audience through â€Å"sudden, jarring cuts between the third- and first-class, [which] build the antithesis between the classes and accentuate the conflicts. Some of the examples include: the cut between the steer get berthing space when Jack and Fabrizio (Danny Nucci) first arrive on the ship and Cal’s private promenade deck; the cut between Rose and Jack dancing in the steerage party scene and the first-class smoking lounge (which is such an abrupt change of atmosphere and energy that it comes as quite a cinematic shock to the viewers); the cut between the flooding in the steerage with rats on the run and the pro priety of a first-class corridor that does not even hint at the impending tragedy† (Butka). Throughout the movie, the film consists of scenes mainly from the Jack and Rose era, however in the beginning of the film, the director made use of flashback technique to unearth the romantic story of the lovers in the film. To be specific, the plot moves from present condition (say, 1996) to past (say, 1912) and to present (1996). In the opening scene, the director portrays the effort of Brock Lovett (say, a treasure hunter) to unearth the secret behind a necklace sunk with RMS Titanic in 1912. Gradually, the director portrays the love affair between Rose and Jack. In the end, Rose drops the necklace into the Ocean and returns. The film ends with a fictional reunion between the lovers. Dissolves are very important to the film, â€Å"particularly those between different time periods, and even fades are used occasionally to mark important points in the film (e.g., when Rose finishes her story)’ (Butka) Cameron also uses â€Å"establishing shots regularly, thus preserving a locale orientation for the viewers: not only do we always know exactly where we are, but these establishing shots also help us grasp the ship’s enormous dimensions† (Butka). Even in the period section of the film, â€Å"there is a separation between two distinct photographic styles: â€Å"In the first part, the camerawork is rather polite, graceful and even eloquent. [Carpenter] was trying to reinforce the opulence and beauty of the time with lighting,† (Butka). This eloquent style gives a feeling of tranquility and perfection to the first class shipmates, providing deep segregation to the boat, thus bringing about the conflict of Jack and Rose’s love. This camera and editing style let the audience feel the same way that the characters were feeling, eloquent and fashionable. When looking at the color of the first class section of the boat, â€Å"there is also use of amber, a color Ca meron has not used before; in addition, the first-class sections of the ship are even more colorful, which is undeniably helped by the exquisite costuming† (Butka). In the second part of the film, the camera work and editing becomes much more violent and choppy, showing the struggle the passengers endured as the ship hit the iceberg and ultimately began to sink. The camerawork â€Å"quickly loses that polite edge and segues into this very kinetic, sometimes violent movement. It’s jarring and bumpy, which suggests the panic of the situation. This is a point that Cameron, Carpenter, and Muro worked on together; later in the film, initial smooth and refined camera movements transform into â€Å"less elegant and more nervous. There’s a lot more handheld work and Steadicam, and its rough† (Butka). The overall production of the Titanic came at quite a cost but was a tremendous success, to say the least. Titanic’s production was a â€Å"famously difficult and complex one, a shoot on an almost unprecedented scale which featured tough technical challenges and which was overseen by a director who knew exactly what he wanted and who demanded the utmost from everyone until he got it, but it was a tough journey to get there† (Braund). Production of the film began in 1995, when â€Å"Cameron shot footage of the real wreck of the RMS Titanic. He envisioned the love story as a means to engage the audience with the real-life tragedy. A shooting took place on board the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh which aided Cameron in filming the real wreck for the modern scenes, and a reconstruction of the ship was built at Playas de Rosarito, Baja California. Cameron also used scale models and computer-generated imagery to recreate the sinking. At the time†, the picture became the m ost expensive film ever made, costing approximately US$200 million with funding from Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox (Butka). â€Å"Principal photography for Titanic began in July 1996 at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. In September 1996, the production moved to the newly built Fox Baja Studios in Rosarito, Mexico, where a full-scale RMS Titanic had been constructed (Marsh). Special effects played an important role in how the movie filmed. Many critics were skeptical about how Cameron would portray such a disastrous scene, including the deaths of all of the people aboard the ship. Cameron then went on to say that \the people were all computer graphics. The way we did it was, we had people act out all of those individual behaviors in what we call a \motion capture environment.\ So, a steward pouring tea for a lady seated on a deck chair that was all acted out and then that motion file was used to drive and animate those figures. The end result is like you said: We pull back down the full length of Titanic, and you see 350 people all over the decks, doing all those different things. The same technique was used for the sinking when you see hundreds of people on the ship jumping off or rolling down the decks\ (Ebert). Cameron also did not want to cut corners in regards to the props and sets used. In addition to the life-size model of the Titanic, Cameron also had â€Å"construction crews build two huge water tanks. One was 90 foot deep and over 800 foot wide in which the model could slowly sink into 17 million gallons of water fed directly from the Pacific Ocean. The second tank was 30 foot deep. It contained 5 million gallons of water and housed the elegant first class dining saloon and the three story Grand Staircase† (Titanic and Co). One of the most impressive interior sets was the recreation of the famed Grand Staircase the most famous room Titanic contained. Additionally, the Staircase, â€Å"as mentioned by one of the film crew personnel, ended up acting almost as a character in the film, due to it being the location of several pivotal scenes, including the ending scene. Interestingly, the staircase presented in the film is slightly larger than the one on the real ship. The reason for this was because people in 1912 were shorter than they are today. As a result, the staircase was scaled up to make the actors look smaller† (IMDB). For the exterior shots of the ship sinking, the almost â€Å"full-scale ship was placed in a 3 foot deep, 17 million gallon tank and tilted using a crane. For the interior shots of the sinking ship, the sets were enclosed in a 5 million gallon tank and again tilted in the water using a crane. This was the method used for the Grand Staircase. However, to make the destruction of the Grand Staircase more dramatic, Cameron and his team dropped 90,000 gallons of water onto it. Because the Staircase would be destroyed, there would be only one attempt to get it right. Unexpectedly, the massive volume of water ripped the Staircase from its steel-reinforced foundations, collapsing certain sections of it† (IMDB). This destruction of the stair case was relatively dramatic and saddening to the characters and audience because it had become such a vital work of art in the movie. These stairs were much more than just stairs; they were the place in which Jack fell in love with Rose, the place Rose and Jack embraced in their final kiss in the final scene; a true masterpiece that had become one of the characters, gone in an instant. Roger Ebert became â€Å"film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times in 1967. He is the only film critic with a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame and was named honorary life member of the Directors\ Guild of America. He won the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Screenwriters\ Guild, and honorary degrees from the American Film Institute and the University of Colorado at Boulder† (Ebert). He then went on to interview James Cameron on his success and struggles with the making of the Titanic. The footage of the sunken ship was mainly real footage of the actual sunken Titanic. James Cameron believed that in order for the movie to have a more authentic feel, that he should take actual film himself with his own camera. Cameron wasn\t content to buy footage from documentaries about the search for the Titanic; he shot the film\s undersea footage himself, new for this film: \It\s all our own. I made the dives and operated the camera and we lit it and everything† (Ebert) Cameron then went on to explain the struggles that appeared when creating the interior of the Titanic. â€Å"It\s consistent with what Titanic looks like† Cameron mentioned. â€Å"We couldn\t explore the whole interior of the ship. We could only get a glimpse into some areas. We went down some corridors to the D-deck level and saw a lot of the remaining hand-carved woodwork, the wall-paneling, and the beautiful ornate carved doors. A lot of it is still there. It\s very, very cold, which helps preserve things. There are marine organisms that will eat wood, but in certain areas the wood was covered with white-leaded paint that protected Titanic† (Ebert). As morbid as it sounds, it was important to display the fear and anguish on the faces of the people trapped on and inside the sinking vessel. Even though this was a Romeo and Juliet type of love story, the overwhelming message was to portray the absolute disaster the Titanic was and to show the terror on the faces of those involved. Cameron goes on to say that many died in terror, you know, when you look at the numbers, if you were a third class male on Titanic you stood a 1-in-10 chance of survival. If you were a first class female, it was virtually a 100 percent survival rate. It broke down along lines of gender and class. If you were a first-class male, you stood about a 50-50 chance of survival. And the crew took it hardest.\ Of the 1,500 who died, 600 or 700 of them were crew members. The people who stayed in the dynamo room and the engine room, to keep the lights on so that the evacuation would not become panicked who stayed till the end and missed their opportunity to leave t he ship that\s something you\d see less of today† (Ebert). This just goes to show that Cameron felt very passionate about the way he needed to portray this type of despair in his movie, and in order to do that he needed have the film crew work extremely hard in order to portray that same anguish. \That was our most dangerous work,\ Cameron said. \The stunt team worked for weeks in advance, videotaping each one of those stunts and rehearsing it and showing me the tapes. It was all intensely pre-planned and the set was made about 50 percent out of rubber at that point, all padded up. But there\s always an X-factor. We had 6,000 stunt person days on this film the equivalent of one man doing stunts seven days a week for 16 years. But it was all happening at once. We did have a guy break his leg, which I hated. I don\t think anybody should get hurt for a film. So I decided to do more of it with computer graphics† (Ebert). This made it more apparent that special effects had to be made more in order to keep the cast and crew safe. Therefore, the scene in which the Titanic is actually sinking was almost entirely CGI when the camera was sweeping over the boat in a birds eye view. Cameron goes on to talk about the importance of human nature and how the story of Titanic is iconic not because of the class struggles, but once tragedy strikes, we are all on the same level fighting for survival. Cameron goes on to state that the â€Å"great lesson of Titanic for us, going into the 21st century,\ he said, \ is that the inconceivable can happen. Those people lived in a time of certainty; they felt they had mastered everything mastered nature and mastered themselves. But they had mastered neither. A thousand years from now Titanic will still be one of the great stories. Certainly, there have been greater human tragedies during this century, but there\s something poetically perfect about Titanic, because of the laying low of the wealthy and the beautiful people who thought life would be infinite and perfect for them.\ What would you have done? Anyone seeing this movie, I said, will have to ask them this question: Would I have fought to get on a lifeboat? Would I have pushed a woman or a child out of the way? Or would I have sat down in the lounge and called for a brandy, like Guggenheim, and faced the inevitable with grace† (Ebert)? In conclusion, Titanic taught the general public that the human race is not invincible and that nature does not care whether you are rich or poor, perfect or imperfect, or nothing at all. Through the masterful works of camera angles, visual imagery, editing, and specific scenery, director and writer James Cameron was able to recreate the tragedy of the unsinkable Titanic through the camera lens. Cameron was able to display the struggles of love, life, death, and historical understanding through the eyes of Jack and Rose, and through the magic of filmmaking, teach an incredible lesson that will live on through eternity.

Portfolio Management Essays -- GCSE Business Marketing Coursework

Portfolio Management Introduction: Portfolio management is a conglomeration of securities as whole, rather than unrelated individual holdings. Portfolio management stresses the selection of securities for inclusion in the portfolio based on that security’s contribution to the portfolio as a whole. This purposes that there some synergy or some interaction among the securities results in the total portfolio effect being something more than the sum of its parts. When the securities are combined in a portfolio, the return on the portfolio will be an average of the returns of the securities in the portfolio. For example, if a portfolio was comprised on equal positions in two securities, whose returns are 15% and 20%, the return on the portfolio, will the average of the returns of the two securities in the portfolio, or 17.5%. From this we will discuss the process of creating a diversified portfolio. The diversified portfolio is a theory of investing that reduces the risk of losing all your money when â€Å"al l your eggs† are not in one basket. Diversification limits your risk an over the long run, can improve your total returns. This is achieved by putting assets in several categories of investments. Portfolio Process: The portfolio process is as follows: 1. Designing an investment objective; 2. Developing and implementing an asset mix; 3. Monitoring the economy and the markets; 4. Adjusting the portfolio and measuring the performance Due to the intensity of each of the four items, we will be covering only the first two. 1. Investment Objective: This topic is broad and contains three major divisions. They are foundation objectives, constraints and major objectives. Foundation Objectives: These objectives generally receive the most attention from investors and are determined by thorough determination of your needs, preferences and resources. ï‚ · Return – you need to determine whether you prefer a strategy of return maximization, where assets are invested to make the greatest return possible while staying within the risk tolerance level, or whether a required minimum return with certainty is preferable, generating only as much return with emphasis on risk reduction. ï‚ · Risk – There are many ways to assess the risk tolerance of any particular investor, from the least knowledgeable of investments to the very sophisticated investor. Beside... ...the market as a whole. Diversifying among a number of securities can reduce nonsystematic risk. Both of these types of risk can be avoided when you correctly evaluate your risk guidelines and determine the maximum amount of risk that you are willing to handle. Conclusion: Once your portfolio has been established then next step in the management is to evaluate your portfolio’s performance. The success of your portfolio is determined by comparing the total rate of return of the portfolio to the average total return of comparable portfolios. It is essential to develop a system to monitor the appropriateness of the securities that comprise the portfolio and the strategies governing it. The process is twofold as it involves monitoring: ï‚ · The changes in your goals, financial position and preferences; ï‚ · Expectations in capital markets and individual companies; Remember that diversification is more than placing your eggs in different baskets. It is also making sure that all your baskets aren’t made from the same material. References: Wall Street 101, www.familyinternet.com Learning to Invest, www.learningtoinvest.com Your Money Coach, www.yourmoneycoach.com

Bhopal Gas Tragedy

Bhopal as a Case Study – Union Carbide Corp. INVESTIGATION OF LARGE-MAGNITUDE INCIDENTS: BHOPAL AS A CASE STUDY Ashok S. Kalelkar Arthur D. Little, Inc. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA Presented At The Institution of Chemical Engineers Conference On Preventing Major Chemical Accidents London, England May 1988 ABSTRACT The investigation of large-magnitude incidents is fraught with difficulties and the process of establishing the primary cause of an incident often requires an understanding of human nature in addition to the necessary technical and engineering skills.The salient non-technical features that are common to the investigation of large-magnitude events are discussed in general. The investigation of the Bhopal disaster is discussed as a specific case study in light of these salient features. The results of the overall investigation are discussed and it is demonstrated that the commonly-held view that water-washing of a certain header caused the disaster is physically impo ssible. Evidence is presented which indicates that direct water entry into the methyl isocyanate storage tank was the likely initiating cause of the Bhopal disaster.I. INTRODUCTION In the aftermath of a major accident or incident in the chemical industry, it is common practice to ascertain the cause of the event through an investigation. If the magnitude of the incident is very large in terms of its impact on people, property, or the environment, it is not uncommon to assemble several teams of investigators to seek the cause of the incident independently. In the United States, a large-magnitude event may be investigated by the company that owns the facility, the insurance group that rovides the liability coverage, federal investigators (e. g. , OSHA, EPA), and state and local regulatory agencies. When several investigations are being conducted concurrently, in spite of the differing interests that are represented by each investigating team, cooperation and fact-sharing generally occ urs among the investigating teams. This cooperative spirit was evident to some extent, for example, in the investigation of the LPG disaster in 1984 in Mexico City l. Page 1 of 16 Bhopal as a Case Study – Union Carbide Corp.Given the significant amount of damage that is typically associated with a large-magnitude event, coverage by the news media is both extensive and exhaustive, especially if a number of fatalities have occurred. The news media represent yet another group of separate investigators and tend to focus on the human interest aspects of the tragedy. In addition, often with little hard information available, they actively speculate on the cause of the event in an attempt to â€Å"scoop† the story; that is, to be the first to report the cause to the world at large.In recent years, the news media with their surfeit of investigative reporters have become a predictable presence at the site of an incident. Although no two major disasters are the same, our involve ment in the investigation of more than a dozen events of significant magnitude has led us to believe that there are certain salient features that are common to most investigations. They include: 1. Media Pressure – In the immediate aftermath of a large-magnitude incident, both nontechnical and technically trained reporters converge on the site, looking for quick â€Å"answers† to the question of what caused the event.Most reporters are responsible, restrained, and unbiased in their reporting. However, a fringe group usually appears on-site that is more interested in developing causation theories, which seem to have great public appeal, regardless of their veracity. In the case of the disaster at Bhopal in 1984, the cause celebre was the â€Å"missing slip-blind† during a water-washing operation. An assertion was made that failure to insert a slip-blind prior to water-washing of some filters ultimately led to water entering the MIC tank and starting a reaction. T his assertion proved to be false, as will be demonstrated later in this paper.The difficulty with these incorrect causation theories is that, because the public and the media have a short attention span, the theories can become the conventionally accepted versions of what occurred. When a technical investigation discloses the actual cause much later, there may be less coverage, because the event is â€Å"old news† by then. 2. Psychological Issues – It has also been our experience that those people associated with a large-magnitude incident seem to evince an internal need to put some psychological distance between themselves and the incident.For example, there are those who feel — in hindsight — that even though they were not responsible for the event, they could have done more to reduce the magnitude of the event. And there are those who just wish it had not occurred on â€Å"their watch†. There are also occasions when persons on duty distort and o mit major facts to establish a reduced responsibility for the event. There is substantial evidence that such distortions and omissions occurred in Bhopal. 3. Eyewitness Accounts – When eyewitnesses are questioned about a major accident or incident, they tend to reveal only those facts that they personally consider important and pertinent.Thus, a good investigator must draw people out, using a line of questioning which elicits all pertinent facts. We have found that an eyewitness is most likely to be forthcoming and helpful if he or she is questioned immediately after the event. Once a story is told, whether accurate or inaccurate, it tends to harden. Further, where a deliberate distortion occurs, with the passage of time, the persons involved tend to coordinate their stories better. This puts a substantial premium on talking to persons involved quickly.In the Bhopal situation, the Union Carbide investigation team was blocked from doing this by the Indian Government for over a year. As a result, Union Carbide was unable to uncover the ultimate cause of the event until 1986. 4. Contradictory Accounts – When faced with contradictory statements from various Page 2 of 16 Bhopal as a Case Study – Union Carbide Corp. witnesses, an investigator has to weigh various accounts and then judge which account is likely to be correct, discarding the false account.This may require gaining an understanding of the probable motives of those persons who, knowingly or unknowingly, provided the incorrect accounts. It is also often possible to assess the accounts against known or technically established facts, to determine their accuracy. We encountered numerous cases of directly contradictory accounts of various situations that transpired during the Bhopal incident from those who were present during the event. 5. Time Perception – Although witnesses in a traumatic incident often recall the sequence of events with remarkable clarity, their perceptions of t ime during the actual incident sometimes differ.Therefore, when establishing the true chronology, witnesses' time perception must be evaluated against objective evidence. In the case of the Bhopal investigation, piecing together the correct chronology required that perceptions of time among different witnesses be accounted for in a consistent manner. The above list of features is by no means complete. However, it does identify some significant issues that are manifest in incident investigations, and which should be considered by investigators of large-magnitude incidents. The very presence of these issues makes an incident investigation more than a purely technical exercise.In many ways, one can liken the investigation to attempting to correctly piece together a complex jigsaw puzzle, with the added challenge of having several pieces that are hidden, others yet to be discovered, and several extraneous pieces that do not belong in the completed puzzle at all and have to be discarded. To add to the investigator's difficulties, the â€Å"puzzle† has to result in a clear picture, even though assembled in a background of human tragedy and suffering, media attention, and a general aura of suspicion and hostility towards the plant and company investigation teams.The above factors are those which we have identified in our investigation of large-magnitude incidents, and many of these factors played a role in the investigation of the Bhopal incident. The following sections will give a brief background of the investigation, elaborate upon some of the factors which were encountered and resolved during the investigation, and present some of the evidence and the conclusions of the investigation. II. BHOPAL INVESTIGATION BACKGROUND To the best of our knowledge, two separate major detailed technical investigations of the Bhopal event were authorized.One investigation 2, sponsored by the Government of India (GOI), was conducted by a staff of scientists and engineers fro m the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and it included other experts as well. A second investigation3, sponsored by the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC)*, was conducted by scientists and engineers from UCC, Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), outside experts, and attorneys. The two investigations went forward entirely independent of one another. (The Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) also conducted its own investigation. )In addition to these major investigations, dozens of opinions, purportedly based on investigations of the incident, were offered by various newspapers, magazines, television and radio commentators, authors, organizations, consultants, and politicians. Such accounts generally proved Page 3 of 16 Bhopal as a Case Study – Union Carbide Corp. to be quite flawed and incomplete. Union Carbide investigators were at the site of the incident at Bhopal within days of the event to provide assistance and to conduct an investigation, but fo und that the plant had been sealed and placed under the control of the CBI.The cause of the incident was not then apparent. The methyl isocyanate (MIC) production unit had been shut down six weeks prior to the incident and the storage tank (Tank 610) had been isolated at that time; all that was known was that the pressure had risen in Tank 610 during the third shift on a Sunday night, December 2-3, 1984, and that MIC had been released into the atmosphere. It was unknown whether the release had been triggered by the entry of a contaminant, water, or some other agent.The search for the cause of the incident at that point was, however, a secondary consideration; a second tank (Tank 611) containing some 20 tons of MIC remained, and the first order of business was to assist in its safe disposal. It was determined that the safest route would be to process the MIC and SEVIN carbaryl pesticide, which was then done promptly. The processing of this tank of MIC was conducted jointly by UCIL an d the CSIR, with the assistance of UCC's technical team, in an activity labeled Operation Faith by the Indian Government.Following the safe disposal of the remaining MIC in December of 1984, the UCC investigation team attempted to begin its investigation. However, the legal skirmishes had commenced in both the United States and India and the CBI essentially maintained complete control over the records of the MIC unit. Although the investigation team was permitted to see copies of records in the period immediately following the event, it was allowed to do so only by specifically requesting a copy of a particular record or document. *The author of this paper and the organization he represents were a part of this investigation team.Thus, if the team was unaware that a particular document existed, the document would never come to its attention, even though it might have a significant bearing on the outcome of the investigation. Moreover, the CBI prohibited interviews with the plant's em ployees. The team submitted to the CBI a list of 193 plant employees whom it wanted to interview, but permission was refused. The CBI would only authorize discussions with the Plant Manager and the MIC Production Superintendent, neither of whom was on duty the night of the incident.In fact, the CBI was conducting a criminal investigation into the incident, and it contended that attempts by Union Carbide's investigating team to formally interview the workers would constitute â€Å"tampering with evidence† in the criminal investigation. The problem of access to information was further magnified by this threat of criminal prosecution by the Indian government, Union Carbide's Chairman, Warren Anderson, who went to Bhopal to offer assistance and relief immediately after the incident, was placed under arrest upon his arrival in the city, and seven UCIL officers and employees were also arrested.This posture, in addition to physically preventing an investigation by Union Carbide, cre ated an atmosphere of fear of criminal sanctions among the plant workers. Such an atmosphere, together with the sheer magnitude of the disaster, made witnesses even more defensive and uncommunicative than is usually the case in such investigations. Further, the CBI conducted its criminal investigation into the incident using aggressive tactics. We believe this treatment played a major role in the development of a â€Å"cover-up† by plant employees.As noted earlier, there is a reflexive tendency among plant workers everywhere to Page 4 of 16 Bhopal as a Case Study – Union Carbide Corp. attempt to divorce themselves from the events surrounding any incident and to distort or omit facts to serve their own purposes. This is especially so where the investigation is criminal in nature. In addition, once an eye-witness has taken a defensive position under aggressive questioning by police making a criminal investigation, it becomes, as a practical matter, nearly impossible for the witness to later change that position to state the actual facts.The team was permitted access to samples of the tank residue, and, after several months of extensive analysis of the residue of Tank 610, including more than 500 experiments, the UCC investigation team issued its report in March 1985 3. The team concluded that the incident was caused when 1,000 to 2,000 pounds of water entered the tank. After subsequent experimentation and more extensive sampling much later, the amount of water was determined to be even greater.This large quantity of water reacted with the MIC in the tank, causing its temperature to rise to over 100 °C, leading to a vigorous exothermic trimerization of MIC, resulting in rapid rises in temperature and pressure, and ultimately causing the major release. The incident occurred, despite the fact that the system had been designed and operated to keep out even small amounts of water, and the fact that no water had ever entered the tanks during the five y ears the plant had been in operation. Moreover, it was clear upon subsequent sampling and analysis that no water had entered either of the other two MIC storage tanks.Because the MIC production facility had been shut down for over a month prior to the incident, and for a variety of other reasons that will be discussed, the investigation team concluded that direct entry of the water — that is, by a direct connection to the tank rather than through the plant's piping system — was likely. However, because the team had not been permitted to interview the plant employees and did not have full access to the records, it was unable to develop this theory further at that time. The CSIR publicly issued its report 2 in December of 1985, approximately one year after the incident.The CSIR report also concluded that the event was caused by the entry of a large quantity of water into Tank 610. The CBI has not, to date, issued a public report of the findings of its own investigation. LITIGATION For more than a year, the CBI continued to prohibit interviews with the plant's employees. In the interim, a new aspect to the investigation developed. The Indian Government filed a civil suit against Union Carbide Corporation in the United States, asserting that the Government was the sole representative of the Bhopal victims.Thus, the Government acted as the plaintiff in a civil case with an interest in proving Union Carbide Corporation to be liable, yet, in its institutional role, it continued to exercise complete control of access to the sources of proof, restricting Union Carbide's ability to learn the truth, and fostering a version of the facts which supported its own litigation interest. The Government's position as a party to the civil suit ultimately provided certain benefits to Union Carbide's investigation. In December 1985, a U. S. agistrate 4 ordered the Indian Government to turn over copies of certain of the plant's records that had been seized, and these th en became available for analysis by Union Carbide for the first time. Moreover, while it was before the U. S. court seeking information from Union Carbide, the Indian Government could not, as a practical matter, continue to restrict access to plant employees, which enabled Union Carbide to finally begin interviews. Despite having been denied access to the evidence for more than a year and despite being viewed with a great deal of hostility and suspicion, Union Carbide investigators Page 5 of 16Bhopal as a Case Study – Union Carbide Corp. conducted a thorough review of the incident which included detailed interviews with virtually all of the relevant plant employees. INTERVIEWS Union Carbide employees and representatives began to interview the plant's employees in January 1986. Many people spoke openly and willingly. However, the team anticipated that there would be problems in interviewing the plant's employees, and the team therefore was assisted by a person familiar with mo st of the employees. This proved advantageous because the team found that many would speak to him, even if they were unwilling to speak to the entire team.It also proved beneficial in assessing the credibility of each individual. Language also loomed as a potential problem, although ultimately it did not prove to be troublesome. Although all operators spoke English, many were more comfortable speaking Hindi. Several members of the team were fluent in Hindi and, by translating each question and answer, the interviews progressed smoothly. However, the team did encounter some problems in locating the involved employees and persuading them to talk about a traumatic incident that had occurred a year and a half earlier.The Bhopal plant had been shut down since the incident, and the employees, by and large, had sought other employment. Many of the former operators and other employees had departed Bhopal without leaving any forwarding addresses, and it took weeks of questioning former landl ords and neighbors to determine their whereabouts. Several had relocated as far away as Nepal and remote areas of India. This required lengthy journeys — in one case, only to find the wrong individual with the same name. Careful advance preparation was therefore necessary.Many of the former MIC operators were later employed by the State Government as plant safety inspectors. Some of those who had been most directly involved refused to talk to the team and eluded many attempts. Because politeness is an Indian trait, in fact, some would make appointments for interviews, but then disappear just prior to the appointment. Once found, however, the customary politeness proved to be an advantage, and the investigators learned it was wise to nurse the obligatory cup of tea for hours to prolong the interview in order to obtain bits and pieces of new information.Although the Indian Government has continued to refuse access to the original plant records, copies of some of them were produ ced in the civil suit, and the investigators were able to analyze them and use their content in the interviews. The investigators conducted well over 70 interviews over the course of a year and a half. The significant aspects and findings of this investigation are presented in what follows. To better understand the findings, however, a basic understanding of the plant's layout and operation is necessary. III.BHOPAL PLANT LAYOUT AND OPERATION The plant layout is shown in Figure 1. Methyl isocyanate (MIC) was produced at the Bhopal Page 6 of 16 Bhopal as a Case Study – Union Carbide Corp. plant by reacting monomethylamine and phosgene in the plant's MIC production unit. The refined MIC was then transferred to a separate MIC storage area (see Figure 2) where it was stored in two horizontal, mounded, 15,000-gallon, stainless-steel tanks. A third storage tank was kept empty for emergencies and for off-specification material awaiting reprocessing.The MIC was used to make SEVIN carb aryl and several other carbamate pesticides. The MIC was processed into SEVIN carbaryl pesticide in the SEVIN unit. The MIC was transferred in one-ton batches to a charge pot in the SEVIN unit using nitrogen pressure. A nitrogen pressure of at least 14 psig in the MIC storage tank was necessary to move the material from the storage area to the SEVIN unit charge pot at a reasonable rate. From there, each batch would be reacted with alpha-naphthol to make SEVIN carbaryl.On the night of December 2-3, 1984, the 41 metric tons of MIC in one of the storage tanks (Tank 610) underwent a chemical reaction which was initiated by the introduction of water to the tank. The reaction caused the release of MIC through the relief-valve system. This, in turn, resulted in the Bhopal tragedy. The exact means by which water entered Tank 610 that night was the subject of the investigation described in this paper. The team first considered and analyzed the purported cause of the incident which had been p ublicly reported by the media.This was the socalled â€Å"water-washing theory. † This story is discussed next. IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE WATER-WASHING THEORY As discussed in Section I, the media generally play a significant role in establishing public perception of the cause of large-magnitude incidents, often drawing conclusions before the facts can be established. In the days immediately after the incident, the story that emerged from the plant workers, as reported by the press (much of which ultimately provided to be fallacious), was as follows: Shortly before the end of the second shift, at 10:20 p. . , the pressure in Tank 610 was reported to be at 2 psig. The shift change occurred at 10:45 p. m. , and everything was normal until 11:30 p. m. , at which time a small leak was reported downwind and in the area of the MIC production unit. The MIC supervisor said that he would deal with the leak after tea, which began at 12:15 a. m. The tea lasted until 12:40 a. m. at which time all was normal. At that point, the control room operator observed the pressure rise suddenly in Tank 610, and within minutes the indicator was off the gauge's scale. At 12:45 a. . , the safety valve on the tank opened, and gas came out of the stack of the vent gas scrubber. The operators ran to the tank and found it rumbling, and the concrete over the tank was cracking. The fire squad sprayed the stack to knock down the gas, and the reaction subsided an hour or so later. The workers claimed to have no idea as to why the pressure rose in the first instance. According to this account, the incident occurred suddenly and inexplicably. There was, however, intense media pressure to quickly identify the cause of the incident.As noted above, some journalists tend to try to uncover a cause that is easy to understand and easy to explain; they also show a tendency to find and publicize an explanation that will have popular appeal. In the case of Bhopal, this caused the media to seize upon rep orts of an improper waterwashing of a pipeline in the MIC production structure — a report that first began to circulate only days after the incident. According to this story, an MIC operator was told to wash a section of a subheader of the relief valve vent header (â€Å"RVVH†) in the MIC manufacturing unit. Because he Page 7 of 16Bhopal as a Case Study – Union Carbide Corp. failed to insert a slip-blind, as called for by plant standard operating procedures, the water supposedly backed up into the header and eventually found its way into the process vent header (â€Å"PVH†) through a tubing connection near the tanks. It then was supposed to have flowed into the MIC storage tank, located more than 400 feet by pipeline from the initial point of entry. This was, to a layman, an apparently plausible, easily understood explanation of the water source, which did not require any detailed knowledge of the plant process or layout.It also was a theory that had popu lar appeal because it focused on a simple, minor human inadvertence which caused a great tragedy — a â€Å"for-want-of-a-horseshoe-nail-the-kingdom-was-lost† explanation. It was readily accepted by those eager to believe the incident had been caused by improper operating practices at a purportedly shoddy chemical plant in a Third World country. The waterwashing theory was also publicly embraced by the Indian Government. Although the water-washing theory has superficial appeal, those engineers most familiar with the plant — its valving, piping, and layout — found the theory highly implausible.When Union Carbide finally gained access to the plant, talked to witnesses, and considered all the evidence, it concluded that the theory could not withstand even minimal scientific scrutiny. And, although the Indian Government holds in its possession records and test results that completely discredit this theory, it continues to embrace it nonetheless. Several indepe ndent pieces of evidence demonstrate that water-washing of lines in the filter area could not possibly have been the cause of water entry into Tank 610. This evidence is discussed next. V.EVIDENCE REFUTING THE WATER-WASHING THEORY The details of the pertinent parts of the plant vent systems, shown in Figure 3, will be helpful in understanding the material presented in this section. The water-washing theory assumes that water from an operation designed to wash a sub-header near four process filters (Point â€Å"A† of Figure 3) went through the relief valve vent header (RVVH), then through a connection to the process vent header (PVH) and then into Tank 610 (Point â€Å"B†). At least three independent, objective pieces of evidence establish that this could not have happened. . BLEEDER VALVE HYDRAULICS The water was introduced using a hose with a 1/2-inch inlet. Even assuming all intermediate header-system valves to have been wide open, for water to have reached the top o f the PVH riser near Tank 610 (Point â€Å"B† of Figure 3), it would have had to be under sufficient pressure near the point of introduction (Point â€Å"A† of Figure 3) to enable it to climb 10. 4 feet. Associated with the filters near the washing operation, however, there are four 1/ 2-inch bleeder valves in parallel (see Items 18 of Figure 4).Of these, one was reportedly mechanically plugged, but the other three were reported by five eye-witnesses to be wide open and draining freely. With the 1/2-inch hose connection to the washing operation limiting the flow to about 10-15 gallons/minute, the three open bleeder valves would limit the water back-pressure above them to no more than about 0. 7 foot of hydraulic head, clearly not enough to raise the water by 10. 4 feet. Page 8 of 16 Bhopal as a Case Study – Union Carbide Corp. 2. CLOSED INTERMEDIATE VALVEIn the above paragraph, we assumed for the sake of argument that all intermediate valves in the header system s between the water connection and Tank 610 were open. It should be noted that if any one of these valves was closed (and leak-tight), the waterwashing theory must fail. One such valve is the valve close to the water-washing operation, connecting it to the RVVH (see Item 19 on Figure 4). A plant mastercard (a detailed record of steps taken during maintenance) shows it to have been shut since November 29, 1984.The mastercard also reflects that the valve was physically tagged closed; after the incident, the tag was found to be still present on the valve. Furthermore, with the authorization of the Indian Government, the integrity of this valve was tested in a July 1985 simulation of the waterwashing operation; in this one-hour test, no water leaked past this valve into the RVVH. There is no way that water from the water-washing operation could have reached Tank 610 without first passing through this valve, which is documented to have been closed and leak-tight. 3.DRY HEADER PIPING For water to have penetrated to Tank 610 from the water-washing area, it would have had to fill the 6-inch diameter connecting pipe, then a 65-foot length of 8-inch RVVH (with more than a dozen branches running off this line), and then some 340 feet of 4-inch RVVH. It would then have had to fill a 120-foot length of 2-inch PVH and a last 220-foot section of 2-inch PVH with the vertical legs at each end of this section. Calculations show that some 4,500 pounds of water would have been needed to fill all this piping, before any could get to Tank 610.Thus, if the water-washing operation were the source of the water, large quantities of water would have filled the associated piping. As the incident later progressed and gases were ejected from Tank 610, the gases would have cleared the water from the main RVVH flow path out of the vent gas scrubber. On the other hand, all of the branch downlegs, as well as the 220-foot section of the PVH with the downlegs on either end of it, would have rema ined full of water, as the connection between the PVH and the vent gas scrubber had been previously blinded off to allow replacement of some sections of PVH.And, even though the vented gases were hot, the water in these sections could not have boiled or evaporated away, because these sections were dozens of feet away from the piping in which hot gases were flowing. When the branch vent lines on the ground floor of the production unit and the branch vent lines connected to Tank 611 and to the spare tank were drained, only normal, small amounts of water (or no water al all) were found. On February 8, 1985, the Superintendent of Police, CBI, ordered (see Figure 5A) that a hole be drilled in the lowest point of this 220-foot length of the PVH, to determine how much water was contained therein.The authorization acknowledges that this section of pipe had no bleeders or flanged joints. For the water-washing theory to have been true, there should have been hundreds of pounds of water still in this section of pipe, and so some empty 55-gallon drums were made available to collect whatever amounts of liquid would issue from the drilled hole. When the hole was drilled, however, the pipe was found to be bone-dry. The line was Page 9 of 16 Bhopal as a Case Study – Union Carbide Corp. immediately purged with nitrogen to force any liquid out, but not a drop was obtained (see Figure 5B).Thus, the water-washing theory is clearly untenable. The bleeder valves in the waterwashing area would have had to be closed (but three were witnessed to have been open), the intermediate header valves would have had to be open (but at least one is documented to have been closed and leak-tight), and there would have had to be hundreds of pounds of water in the 220-foot section of the PVH drilled after the incident was over (but not even a single drop was found). VI. SIGNIFICANT ASPECTS OF THE UCC INVESTIGATIONAs indicated in Section V, it was clear to those investigating the event that i t had not been caused in the manner that had gained popular acceptance — inadvertent failure to place a slipblind during water-washing of lines near the process filters. The UCC team also thoroughly considered other possible routes of water entry and became convinced that this incident had been initiated by the entry of water to the tank by means of a direct connection. Evidence of a direct-connection entry was gathered only gradually, however, in large measure because of some of the psychological factors and motivations discussed earlier.PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS Perhaps because of the enormity of the event, many people, even those only peripherally involved, tended to remember in detail and with great clarity the sequence of events of that night. Nevertheless, people experienced the event in different ways, thus yielding, for example, varying estimates of the duration of the actual release. The tendency of plant workers to omit facts or distort evidence was also clearly evident after the Bhopal incident, making the collection of evidence a time-consuming process.In investigating any incident in which facts seem to have been omitted or distorted, it is necessary to examine the motives of those involved. The story that had been initially told by the workers was a preferable one from their perspective, because it exonerated everyone, except perhaps the supervisor. According to this version, the reaction happened instantaneously; there was no time to take preventive or remedial measures, and there was no known cause. Without a cause, no blame could be established.Because critical facts were being deliberately omitted and distorted, the investigation team had to continually review and reanalyze each new piece of evidence and to assess its consistency and veracity with hard evidence and known facts. Ultimately, several firm pieces of evidence came to light — evidence that simply did not fit the story told initially by the workers, and that eventually led to the conclusion that a direct water connection had been found by the workers, but had been covered up. Page 10 of 16 Bhopal as a Case Study – Union Carbide Corp.LAST TRANSFER OF MIC TO THE SEVIN UNIT The plant records show the following sequence of events. Although in the weeks prior to the incident the MIC manufacturing unit had been shut down, the SEVIN unit was operating, using the MIC that had been stored in the tanks. The operators were transferring MIC from Tank 611 to a one-ton charge pot for subsequent conversion to SEVIN. Plant procedure was to exhaust the contents of one MIC storage tank before using the MIC in the second tank, and 21 tons remained in Tank 611.Thus, although they experienced some difficulty in pressurizing Tank 610, which had been at atmospheric pressure for the previous six weeks, there was more than enough MIC in Tank 611 to meet the SEVIN production requirement and there was no need to use the MIC in Tank 610. During the early period after the incident, when the Union Carbide investigation team was about to assist in safely disposing of the MIC remaining in Tank 611, the MIC in the SEVIN charge pot and the transfer line between the tank and the charge pot was sampled.The MIC was found to be greenish, with a higher-than-normal chloroform content (consistent with that of the MIC stored in Tank 610 prior to the incident), and with evidence of the presence of non-volatile reaction products of a water-MIC reaction. These samples caused a substantial amount of concern because it was then feared that there might also be a major problem with the MIC in Tank 611 as well. Precautions were taken to sample the MIC in Tank 611 and extensive analyses of the contents of Tank 611 were conducted.The MIC in Tank 611, however, proved to be onspecification and clear, with normal levels of chloroform, and no non-volatile reaction products. The investigation team, therefore, concluded that the last transfer to the SEVIN charge pot must have c ome from Tank 610, before its contents had severely reacted, rather than from Tank 611. This piece of evidence was surprising because everyone had assumed that all transfers had come from Tank 611 during the period prior to the event. This assumption had been made because the last transfer, as logged by the SEVIN unit operators, occurred from Tank 611 at 23:30, or 11:30 p. . , just prior to the incident. In addition, prior to the time the pressure had begun to rise in Tank 610, there had been insufficient pressure to make a transfer from Tank 610. No operators had reported a transfer that night from Tank 610, although several stated a transfer from Tank 611 had occurred. The team was well aware of the tendency of operators, after an incident of such magnitude, to distance themselves and minimize their involvement, and therefore it continued to explore the possibility that a transfer had been made from Tank 610.Some of the copies of records released to Union Carbide in December 1985 were copies of the MIC inventory records, including those for the night of the incident. One log, which had been previously unavailable to Union Carbide's investigation team in December 1984, showed a final transfer of MIC from Tank 611 between 10:15 and 10:30 p. m. , the evening of the incident. Although, initially, the log did not appear out of the ordinary, several unusual factors were noticed upon closer examination (see next-to-last entry in Figure 6): 1) The transfer was logged as having started at 10:15 p. . on the second shift but between two operators who did not arrive until the third shift began at 10:45 p. m. later that night. It was logged in the handwriting of one of those third shift operations. 2) The logged time of the transfer was out of sequence with the remaining entries. 3) The operator who logged it normally used the 24-hour clock convention in recording transfers. The investigators studied these records, and finally determined that the transfer had been origin ally logged at â€Å"0:15† to â€Å":30†, or 12:15 to 12:30 a. m. and had been altered later that morning Page 11 of 16 Bhopal as a Case Study – Union Carbide Corp. in an attempt to cover up the events and to move the time of the transfer back to a period of time in which the MIC operators could not be blamed. The team thus concluded that the logs showed there had been a transfer from Tank 610 at 12:15 a. m. to 12:30 a. m. — 15 minutes before the major release occurred. In addition to its proximity to the release, the transfer also occurred during the time of the tea break, which was highly irregular.Water is known to be heavier than MIC, and the transfer line comes up from the bottom of the tank. With the discovery of this log, together with the results of the charge pot analysis, the UCC team concluded that there had been an attempt by the MIC operators to remove water from the tank just prior to the time the safety valve lifted, after the pressure had increased sufficiently in the tank to move the material out. This completely refuted the story that the workers had originally told regarding the instantaneous reaction.Moreover, it showed that the operators knew water had entered Tank 610. The transfer of one ton of material would have been wholly and obviously ineffective to relieve pressure in the 45-ton tank; the only reason for a transfer at that time was to get water known to be in the tank out of the tank. This conclusion was further supported by the logs recorded that night in the SEVIN unit. These were made in duplicate, and one copy showed the time of an MIC transfer as 23:30, whereas on the other copy, found in the accounting records, the time of the transfer was missing.We believe that the SEVIN supervisor may have filled in the time of the transfer after the incident to make it appear that the transfer had not occurred close to the time of the major release, but was unable to do so on all copies because the second copy had already been sent (as required by plant procedure) to the plant's accounting office. When the investigating team interviewed the SEVIN supervisor, he at first would not admit that he had gone into the SEVIN unit that morning at all, but he later admitted that he had entered there briefly to complete his logs.The morning after the incident he reportedly discussed the possibility of reacting the MIC in the charge pot into SEVIN, perhaps in an attempt to destroy any evidence of a charge from Tank 610. CONTRADICTIONS Meanwhile, as the interviews with the operators and supervisors directly involved progressed, it became apparent that there were massive contradictions in their stories. For example, operators and employees from other units and another plant downwind of the MIC unit, together with some MIC operators, reported sensing small MIC leaks well before the major release occurred, and they notified their shift supervisors.However, those Bhopal plant supervisors denied hearing an y reports about earlier leaks. In addition, the supervisors were unable to plausibly account for their activities during the 45-minute period prior to the release. They placed themselves with people and in locations for reasons that were entirely different from those that had been given by those individuals they were supposedly with. Ultimately, the reasons for this became clear: witnesses from other units reported that these supervisors and the plant superintendent were taking a break in the plant's main canteen when they received word of the incident.Because previously they had been instructed not to take their breaks together, they masked their actions by claiming to know nothing until just prior to the major release. Page 12 of 16 Bhopal as a Case Study – Union Carbide Corp. The operators in the MIC unit also gave widely contradictory accounts. For example, some stated that the alarm signaling the major release went off only several minutes after tea began at 12:15 a. m. , whereas others stated that the tea period in the control room was entirely normal, and they had not noticed anything to be amiss until just a few minutes prior to the major release.The control room operator initially told the media that he noticed the pressure in Tank 610 was 10 psig when the shift began; however, he later stated that the pressure remained at 2 psig until after tea. Because some of the witnesses directly involved in the incident were initially unavailable for interviews, and because others were rendering obviously contradictory accounts, reports given by the more peripheral figures during the incident became highly important.For these individuals, primarily operators from other units or those who were not present at the time of the incident, there was no motive to distort or omit facts, and their accounts were thus deemed more reliable. Ultimately, it became clear that the MIC operators knew at least 30 to 45 minutes before the release that something was seriously wrong, and that several had acted in an attempt to forestall the problem. One of the more reliable accounts came from a witness who had no motive or reason to distort or omit the facts. He was the â€Å"tea boy†, who served tea in the MIC control room just prior to the major release.With some difficulty, he was located in Nepal, in the Himalayas, and brought to Delhi. Despite the MIC operators' claim of a normal tea period, the tea boy reported that when he entered the unit at about 12:15 a. m. , the atmosphere was tense and quiet. Although he attempted to serve tea, the operators refused it. After detailed questioning of scores of operators, it became apparent that those directly involved were unable to give consistent accounts because they were attempting to give very specific details of events that never occurred.Therefore, the investigation team made an intensive effort to find logs that might have been initially overlooked and that might shed some light on the cause or course of the incident. Two of the significant findings were: 1) While reviewing the daily notes of the MIC unit for the period prior to the incidents, a sketch was found on the reverse side of one page, the first page available for writing. This sketch showed a hose connection to an instrument on a tank, and it appears to have been made to explain how the water entered the tank. ) This effort to search the records brought to light even further evidence of attempts to cover up the story. For example, the time of the occurrence had been altered in log after log to reflect the incident occurring at a different time than had been initially recorded. This was true of the foam-tender log, the assistant security officer's log, the utilities log, and the stores register. Further, in some logs, the pages relevant to the period in question had been either completely, or partially, ripped out. It appeared clear: there had been a systematic effort to alter and destroy logs.In many cases, the t eam found that the witnesses, especially the peripheral ones, were not aware of which facts were pertinent, and they revealed only those they considered important. Thus, it was necessary to talk at length to witnesses about all the facts and circumstances involved to draw out relevant facts. For example, during a series of routine interviews with a variety of former plant employees held in the winter of 1986, an instrument supervisor, who was not on duty that night, offered a telling observation.Casually, he mentioned that when he arrived at the scene early on the morning following the incident, upon checking the instruments on the tank, as he had been instructed to do, he noticed that the local pressure indicator on Tank 610 was missing. This fact was of crucial importance because the instrument is on the tank manhead, and was one of the few places to Page 13 of 16 Bhopal as a Case Study – Union Carbide Corp. which a water hose could be connected (see Item 10 of Figure 7). T he witness was wholly unaware of the significance of his statement.Upon further questioning, the team learned that the indicator was not only missing, but a plug had not been inserted in its place, as would have been the case if it had been removed in the course of plant maintenance. Plant logs showed that the local pressure indicator had been present as of Friday, November 30, 1984, two days prior to the incident. The same instrument supervisor stated that he also found a hose lying beside the tank manhead that morning, and that water was running out of it.Other witnesses questioned later also recalled that the local pressure indicator on Tank 610 was found to be missing after the incident. After his statements subsequently became public in the litigation between the Indian Government and Union Carbide, the CBI subjected the instrument supervisor to six days of interrogation and intimidation during which they attempted, without success, to force him to change his testimony 5. Addit ional significant evidence of direct entry of water came from other peripheral witnesses.Within hours of the incident, reports of a direct water connection to the tank began to circulate among the plant employees. These were reported to the Indian Government by plant management but they could not be pursued at that time because the CBI had prohibited interviews of plant employees. As it became evident that a massive cover-up had occurred among the more directly involved witnesses, these reports became more credible. The investigators, therefore, traced the origins of this report and spoke to an off-duty employee of another unit, who had reached the plant at approximately 2:00 a. . the morning of the incident. He stated that he had been told by a close friend of one of the MIC operators that water had entered through a tube that had been connected to the tank. This was discovered by the other MIC operators, who then tried to open and close valves to prevent the release. Although the MIC operators used technical terms to describe the connection that the interviewee did not understand, he was able to draw the exact location of the connection, which proved to be the location of the local pressure indicator on Tank 610.Another peripheral witness whose testimony proved to be of significance was an operator from a different unit who was on duty that night. He stated that, shortly after the release had subsided early that morning, at approximately 3:00 a. m. , the workers from other units were discussing the incident in the plant. Two MIC operators told them that water had entered the tank through a pressure gauge. VII. THE DIRECT-ENTRY CHRONOLOGY The results of this investigation show, with virtual certainty, that the Bhopal incident was caused by the entry of water to the tank through a hose that had been connected directly to the tank.It is equally clear that those most directly involved attempted to obfuscate these events. Nevertheless, the pieces of the puzzle ar e now firmly in place, and based upon technical and objective evidence, the following sequence of events occurred. At 10:20 p. m. on the night of the incident, the pressure in Tank 610 was at 2 psig. This is significant because no water could have entered prior to that point; otherwise a reaction would have begun, and the resulting pressure rise would have been noticed. At 10:45 p. m. , the shift change occurred.The unit was shut down and it takes at least a half hour for the shift change to be Page 14 of 16 Bhopal as a Case Study – Union Carbide Corp. accomplished. During this period, on a cold winter night, the MIC storage area would be completely deserted. We believe that it was at this point — during the shift change — that a disgruntled operator entered the storage area and hooked up one of the readily available rubber water hoses to Tank 610, with the intention of contaminating and spoiling the tank's contents. It was well known among the plant's operators that water and MIC should not be mixed.He unscrewed the local pressure indicator, which can be easily accomplished by hand, and connected the hose to the tank. The entire operation could be completed within five minutes. Minor incidents of process sabotage by employees had occurred previously at the Bhopal plant, and, indeed, occur from time to time in industrial plants all over the world. The water and MIC reaction initiated the formation of carbon dioxide which, together with MIC vapors, was carried through the header system and out of the stack of the vent gas scrubber by about 11:30 to 11:45 p. m.Because the â€Å"common valve† (Item 16 of Figure 7) was in a closed position before the incident and the tank held a strong vacuum when it cooled down after the incident, it is clear that the valve was temporarily opened to permit the entry of water. This also permitted the vapors initially generated to flow (via the PVH) out through the RVVH. It was these vapors that were sen sed by workers in the area downwind as the earlier minor MIC leaks. The leak was also sensed by several MIC operators who were sitting downwind of the leak at the time. They reported the leak to the MIC supervisor and began to search for it in the MIC structure.At about midnight, they found what they believed to be the source, viz. , a section of open piping located on the second level of the structure near the vent gas scrubber. They fixed a fire hose so that it would spray in that direction and returned to the MIC control room believing that they had successfully contained the MIC leak. Meanwhile, the supervisors went to the plant's main canteen on break. Shortly after midnight, several MIC operators saw the pressure rise on the gauges in the control room and realized that there was a problem with Tank 610.They ran to the tank and discovered the water hose connection to the tank. They discussed the alternatives and called the supervisors back from the canteen. They decided upon tr ansferring about one ton of the tank's contents to the SEVIN unit as the best method of getting the water out. The major release then occurred. The MIC supervisor called the MIC production manager at home within fifteen minutes of the major release and told him that water had gotten into an MIC tank. (It later took UCC's and GOI's investigating teams, working separately, months to determine scientifically that water entry had been responsible. Not knowing if the attempted transfer had exacerbated the incident, or whether they could have otherwise prevented it, or whether they would be blamed for not having notified plant management earlier, those involved decided upon a cover-up. They altered logs that morning and thereafter to disguise their involvement. As is not uncommon in many such incidents, the reflexive tendency to cover up simply took over. VIII. CONCLUSION By their nature, large-magnitude incidents present unique problems for investigators.In the case of the Bhopal inciden t, these problems were compounded by the constraints placed on the Union Carbide investigation team by the Indian Government and, most significantly, by the Page 15 of 16 Bhopal as a Case Study – Union Carbide Corp. prohibition of interviews of plant employees for over a year. Had those constraints not been imposed, the actual cause of the incident would have been determined within several months. Because the investigation was blocked, a popular explanation arose in the media as to the cause of the tragedy.A thorough investigation, which included scores of in-depth witness interviews, a review of thousands of plant logs, tests of valving and piping, hundreds of scientific experiments, and examinations of the plant and its equipment, was ultimately conducted over a year later. That investigation has established that the incident was not caused in the manner popularly reported, but rather was the result of a direct water connection to the tank. IX. REFERENCES 1. Pietersen, J. M . , â€Å"Analysis of the LPG Incident in San Juan Ixtahuapec, Mexico City, 19 November 1984†³, TNO Report 85-0222, 1985. 2. Report on Scientific Studies on the Release Factors Related to Bhopal Toxic Gas Leakage†, Indian Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, December 1985. 3. â€Å"Bhopal Methyl Isocyanate Investigation Team Report†, Union Carbide Corporation, Danbury, Connecticut, U. S. A. , March 1985. 4. In re: Union Carbide Corporation Gas Plant Disaster at Bhopal, India in December 1984. MDL Docket No. 626, U. S. District Court, Southern District of New York, Ordered November 8, 1985. 5. Interlocutory Application No. 19, Filed in Court of District Judge, Bhopal, in Regular Suit No. 1113 of 1986, Date, February 4, 1986. Page 16 of 16