Revised Sample State Complaint Form - P-12 - New York State: Fill & Download for Free

GET FORM

Download the form

The Guide of completing Revised Sample State Complaint Form - P-12 - New York State Online

If you are looking about Modify and create a Revised Sample State Complaint Form - P-12 - New York State, heare are the steps you need to follow:

  • Hit the "Get Form" Button on this page.
  • Wait in a petient way for the upload of your Revised Sample State Complaint Form - P-12 - New York State.
  • You can erase, text, sign or highlight through your choice.
  • Click "Download" to conserve the changes.
Get Form

Download the form

A Revolutionary Tool to Edit and Create Revised Sample State Complaint Form - P-12 - New York State

Edit or Convert Your Revised Sample State Complaint Form - P-12 - New York State in Minutes

Get Form

Download the form

How to Easily Edit Revised Sample State Complaint Form - P-12 - New York State Online

CocoDoc has made it easier for people to Fill their important documents by the online platform. They can easily Tailorize as what they want. To know the process of editing PDF document or application across the online platform, you need to follow the specified guideline:

  • Open CocoDoc's website on their device's browser.
  • Hit "Edit PDF Online" button and Upload the PDF file from the device without even logging in through an account.
  • Add text to PDF for free by using this toolbar.
  • Once done, they can save the document from the platform.
  • Once the document is edited using online browser, the user can export the form as you need. CocoDoc ensures to provide you with the best environment for accomplishing the PDF documents.

How to Edit and Download Revised Sample State Complaint Form - P-12 - New York State on Windows

Windows users are very common throughout the world. They have met hundreds of applications that have offered them services in modifying PDF documents. However, they have always missed an important feature within these applications. CocoDoc are willing to offer Windows users the ultimate experience of editing their documents across their online interface.

The process of editing a PDF document with CocoDoc is simple. You need to follow these steps.

  • Pick and Install CocoDoc from your Windows Store.
  • Open the software to Select the PDF file from your Windows device and continue editing the document.
  • Fill the PDF file with the appropriate toolkit offered at CocoDoc.
  • Over completion, Hit "Download" to conserve the changes.

A Guide of Editing Revised Sample State Complaint Form - P-12 - New York State on Mac

CocoDoc has brought an impressive solution for people who own a Mac. It has allowed them to have their documents edited quickly. Mac users can create fillable PDF forms with the help of the online platform provided by CocoDoc.

To understand the process of editing a form with CocoDoc, you should look across the steps presented as follows:

  • Install CocoDoc on you Mac in the beginning.
  • Once the tool is opened, the user can upload their PDF file from the Mac in seconds.
  • Drag and Drop the file, or choose file by mouse-clicking "Choose File" button and start editing.
  • save the file on your device.

Mac users can export their resulting files in various ways. With CocoDoc, not only can it be downloaded and added to cloud storage, but it can also be shared through email.. They are provided with the opportunity of editting file through multiple ways without downloading any tool within their device.

A Guide of Editing Revised Sample State Complaint Form - P-12 - New York State on G Suite

Google Workplace is a powerful platform that has connected officials of a single workplace in a unique manner. While allowing users to share file across the platform, they are interconnected in covering all major tasks that can be carried out within a physical workplace.

follow the steps to eidt Revised Sample State Complaint Form - P-12 - New York State on G Suite

  • move toward Google Workspace Marketplace and Install CocoDoc add-on.
  • Attach the file and Push "Open with" in Google Drive.
  • Moving forward to edit the document with the CocoDoc present in the PDF editing window.
  • When the file is edited ultimately, download or share it through the platform.

PDF Editor FAQ

Why did Dr. Michael Mann give up his chance to pursue his libel suit against Dr. Ball rather than turn over his underlying climate research data?

BECAUSE HIS DATA IS SHODDY AND WOULD EXPOSE HIS BIAS AND LACK OF ETHICS.Mann apparently relied on the tree rings of just one tree to change our climate history? [He won’t tell us.]Listen to what more than 100 of his colleagues (WORLD SCIENTISTS) think of Mann’s antics erasing canonical history of Medieval Warming period and the Little Ice age with secret data not yet disclosed today! They see him as the rogue political scientist that he is.Michael Mann did not have a case and failed to provide evidence to support his fraudulent erasure of the Medieval Warming and Little Ice Age climate history. The Supreme Court dismissed Mann’s claim solely because Mann failed to move forward with his trial and make a case. Mann misused the judicial system to harass his powerful critics like Dr. Ball. The court called him out an shut down his action. He has not launched an appeal which he would have no chance of winning.NO HOCKEY STICK WARMING SHOWN IN 333 TEMPERATURE RECORD FROM CHINA.THIS COLORED GRAPH IS TAKEN FROM THE IPCC REPORT OF 1990 AFTER MANN DID HIS ORWELLIAN REVISION TO “GET RID OF MEDIEVAL WARMING” AS IT DISPROVED HUMAN CAUSED CHANGE.Read the Supreme Court judgment yourself and you will see behavior unworthy of scientists by this man.SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 BY ANDREW LAWTON“Like the sword of Damocles”: Judge dismisses Michael Mann’s lawsuit against Tim Ball“A mere eight-and-a-half years after Penn State climatologist Michael Mann filed a lawsuit against Canadian professor Tim Ball, the case has been tossed out for its “inexcusable” delays.Justice Christopher Giaschi of the Supreme Court of British Columbia issued his decision in Vancouver on Aug. 22, in response to an application to dismiss by Ball.Based on his reasons, included in full below, the dismissal was ultimately justified by glacial pace at which the proceedings moved, and what the judge characterized as an absence of action by Mann’s team.The judge noted several periods of inaction between the commencement of the action in March, 2011 and the date of his decision.While Mann submitted four binders worth of documentation to combat the motion to dismiss, the judge found there was “no evidence from the plaintiff (Mann) explaining the delay.”Giaschi said the “inordinate delay” was not excusable, and that it prejudiced justice.An excerpt:The evidence is that the defendant intended to call three witnesses at trial who would have provided evidence going to fair comment and malice. Those witnesses have now died. A fourth witness is no longer able to travel. Thus, in addition to finding that presumption of prejudice has not been rebutted, I also find that there has been actual prejudice to the defendant as a consequence of the delay.Turning to the final factor, I have little hesitation in finding that, on balance, justice requires the action be dismissed. The parties are both in their eighties and Dr. Ball is in poor health. He has had this action hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles for eight years and he will need to wait until January 2021 before the matter proceeds to trial. That is a ten year delay from the original alleged defamatory statement. Other witnesses are also elderly or in poor health. The memories of all parties and witnesses will have faded by the time the matter goes to trial.I find that, because of the delay, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for there to be a fair trial for the defendant.The judge awarded Ball legal costs for the dismissal motion, and also the case itself.Mann v. Ball Page 4[8] I now turn to whether the delay is excusable. In my view, it is not. There is no evidence from the plaintiff explaining the delay. Dr. Mann filed an affidavit but he provides no evidence whatsoever addressing the delay. Importantly, he does not provide any evidence saying that the delay was due to his counsel, nor does he provide evidence that he instructed his counsel to proceed diligently with the matter.He simply does not address delay at all.[9] Counsel for Dr. Mann submits that the delay was due to his being busy onother matters, but the affidavit evidence falls far short of establishing this. The affidavit of Jocelyn Molnar, filed April 10, 2019, simply addresses what matters plaintiff's counsel was involved in at various times. The affidavit does not connect those other matters to the delay here. It does not explain the lengthy delay in 2013and 2014 and does not adequately explain the delay from July 2017. The evidence falls far short of establishing an excuse for the delay.[10] Even if I was satisfied that the evidence established the delay was solely due to plaintiff's counsel being busy with other matters, which I am not, I do not agree that this would be an adequate excuse. Counsel for the plaintiff was unable to provide any authority establishing that counsel's busy schedule is a valid excuse for delay. In contrast, the defendant refers me toHughes v. Simpson-Sears, [1988] 52D.L.R. (4th) 553, where Justice Twaddle, writing on behalf of the Manitoba Court of Appeal, stated at p. 13 that:...Freedman, J.A. said that the overriding principle in cases of this kind is “essential justice.”There is no doubt that that is so, but it must mean justice to both parties, not just to one of http://them.In Law Society of Manitoba v. Eadie (judgment delivered on June 27, 1988), Is stated my preference for a one-step application of the fundamental principleon which motions of this kind should be decided. The fundamental principle is that a plaintiff should not be deprived of his right to have his case decided on its merits unless he is responsible for undue delay which has prejudiced the other party. A plaintiff is responsible for delays occasioned by his solicitors. I have already dealt with the consequence of the solicitors' conduct being negligent. Once it is established that the delay is unreasonable having regard to the subject matter of the action, the complexity of the issues, and the explanation for it, the other matter to be considered is the prejudice to the defendant. It is in the task of balancing the plaintiff's right to proceed with the trial.”“IN THE SUPREME COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIACitation: Mann v. Ball,2019 BCSC 1580Date: 20190822Before: The Honourable Mr. Justice GiaschiOral Reasons for JudgmentBall:M. ScherrD. Juteau Place and Date of Hearing: Vancouver, B.C.May 27 and August 22, 2019Place and Date of Judgment: Vancouver, B.C. August 22, 201[1] THE COURT: I will render my reasons on the application to dismiss. I reserve the right to amend these reasons for clarity and grammar, but the result will not change.[2] The defendant brings an application for an order dismissing the action for delay.[3] The plaintiff, Dr. Mann, and the defendant, Dr. Ball, have dramatically different opinions on climate change. I do not intend to address those differences. It is sufficient that one believes climate change is man-made and the other does not. As a result of the different opinions held, the two have been in near constant conflict for many years.[4] The underlying action concerns, first, a statement made by the defendant in an interview conducted on February 9, 2011. He said, “Michael Mann at Penn State should be in the state pen, not Penn State.” This statement was published on a website and is alleged to be defamatory of the plaintiff. The notice of civil claim also alleges multiple other statements published by Mr. Ball are defamatory. It is not necessary that I address the many alleged defamatory statements.[5] 0690860 Manitoba Ltd. v. Country West Construction, 2009 BCCA 535, at paras. 27-28, sets out the four elements that need to be considered on a motion to dismiss. They are:a) Has there been inordinate delay in the prosecution of the matter?;b) If there has been inordinate delay, is it excusable in the circumstances?;c) Has the delay caused serious prejudice and, if so, does it create a substantial risk that a fair trial is not possible?; andd) Whether, on balance, justice requires that the action be dismissed.[6] I turn first to whether there has been inordinate delay. Some key dates in the litigation are:a) March 25, 2011, the action was commenced;b) July 7, 2011, the notice of civil claim was amended;c) June 5, 2012, the notice of civil claim was further amended;d) From approximately June of 2013 until November of 2014, there were no steps taken in the action;e) November 12, 2014, the plaintiff filed a notice of intention to proceed;f) February 20, 2017, the matter was initially supposed to go to trial, but that trial date was adjourned;g) July 20, 2017, the date of the last communication received from Mr. Mann or his counsel by the defendant. No steps were taken in the matter until March 21, 2019 when the application to dismiss was filed;h) April 10, 2019, a second notice of intention to proceed was filed; andi) August 9, 2019, after the first day of the hearing of this application, a new trial date was set for January 11, 2021.[7] There have been at least two extensive periods of delay. Commencing in approximately June 2013, there was a delay of approximately 15 months where nothing was done to move the matter ahead. There was a second extensive period of delay from July 20, 2017 until the filing of the application to dismiss on March 21, 2019, a delay of 20 months. Again, nothing was done during this period to move the matter ahead. The total time elapsed, from the filing of the notice of civil claim until the application to dismiss was filed, was eight years. It will be almost ten years by the time the matter goes to trial. There have been two periods, of approximately 35 months in total, where nothing was done. In my view, by any measure, this is an inordinate delay.[8] I now turn to whether the delay is excusable. In my view, it is not. There is no evidence from the plaintiff explaining the delay. Dr. Mann filed an affidavit but he provides no evidence whatsoever addressing the delay. Importantly, he does not provide any evidence saying that the delay was due to his counsel, nor does he provide evidence that he instructed his counsel to proceed diligently with the matter. He simply does not address delay at all.[9] Counsel for Dr. Mann submits that the delay was due to his being busy on other matters, but the affidavit evidence falls far short of establishing this. The affidavit of Jocelyn Molnar, filed April 10, 2019, simply addresses what matters plaintiff's counsel was involved in at various times. The affidavit does not connect those other matters to the delay here. It does not explain the lengthy delay in 2013 and 2014 and does not adequately explain the delay from July 2017. The evidence falls far short of establishing an excuse for the delay.[10] Even if I was satisfied that the evidence established the delay was solely due to plaintiff's counsel being busy with other matters, which I am not, I do not agree that this would be an adequate excuse. Counsel for the plaintiff was unable to provide any authority establishing that counsel's busy schedule is a valid excuse for delay. In contrast, the defendant refers me to Hughes v. Simpson Sears, [1988] 52 D.L.R. (4th) 553, where Justice Twaddle, writing on behalf of the Manitoba Court of Appeal, stated at p. 13 that:...Freedman, J.A. said that the overriding principle in cases of this kind is “essential justice”. There is no doubt that that is so, but it must mean justice to both parties, not just to one of them.In Law Society of Manitoba v. Eadie (judgment delivered on June 27, 1988), I stated my preference for a one-step application of the fundamental principle on which motions of this kind should be decided. The fundamental principle is that a plaintiff should not be deprived of his right to have his case decided on its merits unless he is responsible for undue delay which has prejudiced the other party. A plaintiff is responsible for delays occasioned by his solicitors. I have already dealt with the consequence of the solicitors' conduct being negligent. Once it is established that the delay is unreasonable having regard to the subject matter of the action, the complexity of the issues, and the explanation for it, the other matter to be considered is the prejudice to the defendant. It is in the task of balancing the plaintiff's right to proceed with the defendant's right not to be prejudiced by unreasonable delay that justice must be done.[Emphasis added][11] Additionally, based upon the evidence filed, the plaintiff and his counsel appear to have attended to other matters, both legal matters and professional matters in the case of the plaintiff, rather than give this matter any priority. The plaintiff appears to have been content to simply let this matter languish.[12] Accordingly, I find that the delay is inexcusable.[13] With respect to prejudice, such prejudice is presumed unless the prejudice is rebutted. Indeed, the presumption of prejudice is given even more weight in defamation cases: Samson v. Scaletta, 2016 BCSC 2598, at paras 40-43. The plaintiff has not filed any evidence rebutting the presumption of prejudice.[14] Moreover, the defendant has led actual evidence of actual prejudice. The evidence is that the defendant intended to call three witnesses at trial who would have provided evidence going to fair comment and malice. Those witnesses have now died. A fourth witness is no longer able to travel. Thus, in addition to finding that presumption of prejudice has not been rebutted, I also find that there has been actual prejudice to the defendant as a consequence of the delay.[15] Turning to the final factor, I have little hesitation in finding that, on balance, justice requires the action be dismissed. The parties are both in their eighties and Dr. Ball is in poor health. He has had this action hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles for eight years and he will need to wait until January 2021 before the matter proceeds to trial. That is a ten year delay from the original alleged defamatory statement. Other witnesses are also elderly or in poor health. The memories of all parties and witnesses will have faded by the time the matter goes to trial.[16] I find that, because of the delay, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for there to be a fair trial for the defendant. This is a relatively straightforward defamation action and should have been resolved long before now. That it has not been resolved is because the plaintiff has not given it the priority that he should have. In the circumstances, justice requires that the action be dismissed and, accordingly, I do hereby dismiss the action for delay.[17] Before concluding, I wish to note that the materials that have been filed on this application are grossly excessive in relation to the matters in issue. There are four large binders of materials filed by the plaintiff on the application to dismiss, plus one additional binder from the defendant. The binders contain multiple serial affidavits, many of which are replete with completely irrelevant evidence. In my view, this application could have been done and should have been done with one or two affidavits outlining the delay, the reasons for the delay, and the prejudice.[18] Those are my reasons, counsel. Costs?[19] MR. SCHERR: I would, of course, ask for costs for the defendant, given the dismissal of the action.[20] MR. MCCONCHIE: Costs follow the event. I have no quarrel with that.[21] THE COURT: All right. I agree. The costs will follow the event, so the defendant will have his costs of the application and also the costs of the action, since the action is dismissed.[22] The outstanding application, I gather there is no reason to proceed with it now.[23] MR. MCCONCHIE: It is academic, in light of –[24] THE COURT: It is academic.[25] MR. MCCONCHIE: – Your Lordship's ruling today.[26] THE COURT: Right. Thank you, gentlemen. Anything else?[27] MR. SCHERR: No, Your Honour.[28] THE COURT: All right.[29] MR. SCHERR: No, My Lord.[30] THE COURT: Then, we are concluded and you shall have your materials back, which are these binders. Thank you, gentlemen.“Giaschi J.”2019 BCSC 1580 Mann v. Ball}By erasing the warmer Medieval period and the colder Little Ice Mann made current warming appear unprecedented which it was not.He was called out by Dr. Tim Ball for fraud.Mann is a rogue scientist and his refusal to produce codes and data is unethical.THE AFFIDAVIT FILED BY DR. TIM BALL AS DEFENDANT IN THE LIBEL TRIAL IN THE SUPREME COURT OF BC.Ball exposes data fraud of Michael Mann in erasing climate history and refusing to produce “the codes, calculations and or data to allow proper verification of the results.”The Supreme Court of British Columbia has released the damning official final Judgment in the Mann-v-Ball ‘science trial of the century. SEE -Damning Ruling Posted in the Mann-v-Ball 'Trial of the Century' | PSI Intl“Michael Mann at Penn State should be in the state pen, not Penn State.”ALLEGED LIBEL OF DR. TIM BALL AFFIDAVIT FOLLOWSMANN lost the case by inaction that implied his libel case was a sham. This is the consent order agreed by both parties in 2017 where Mann agreed to deliver “any expert reports in response to the reports delivered by the defendants.” Mann failed to deliver anything.“ACTION NO. VLCS-S0111913VANCOUVER REGISTRY IN THE SUPREME COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIABETWEENMICHAEL MANNPLAINTIFFANDTIMOTHY TIM") BALL, THE FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY INC., and JOHN DOEDEFENDANTS.CONSENT ORDERBEFORE{A MASTER OF THE COURTFebruary 10, 2017ON THE APPLICATION of the defendants, without a hearing and by consent;THIS COURT ORDERS that:The date for delivery of particulars by the defendant Timothy Ball, to the plaintiff of the directly relevant background context referred to on page 35, paragraph 2 of Schedule A to the Order of Master Scarth entered January 3, 2017 in this action be extended from January 13, 2017 to February 1, 2017.2. The plaintiff, Dr. Michael Mann, shall deliver any expert reports in response to the reports delivered by the defendants Timothy Ball and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy Inc. on or before February 20, 2017.3. The plaintiff, Dr. Michael Mann shall provide particulars of the issues upon which his listed witnesses will testify on or before February 7, 2017.THE FOLLOWING PARTIES APPROVE THE FORM OF THIS ORDER AND CONSENT TO EACH OF THE ORDERS NOTED ABOVEBy the CourtSignature of ROGER MCCONCHIE Lawyer for the plaintiffDigitally signed by Sienature of MICHAELR. SCHERRMann has not appealed the judgment against him and time to do so has past.‘“Michael Mann "Hockey Stick" Update: Now Definitively Established To Be FraudAugust 26, 2019/ Francis MentonThe Michael Mann “Hockey Stick” is suddenly back in the news. It’s been so long since we have heard from it, do you even remember what it is?The “Hockey Stick” is the graph that took the world of climate science by storm back in 1998. That’s when Mann and co-authors Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes published in Nature their seminal paper “Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries.” A subsequent 1999 update by the same authors, also in Nature (“Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations”) extended their reconstructions of “temperature patterns and climate forcing” back another 400 years to about the year 1000. The authors claimed (in the first paragraph of the 1998 article) to “take a new statistical approach to reconstructing global patterns of annual temperature . . . , based on the calibration of multiproxy data networks by the dominant patterns of temperature variability in the instrumental record.” The claimed “new statistical approach,” when applied to a group of temperature “proxies” that included tree ring samples and lake bed sediments, yielded a graph — quickly labeled the “Hockey Stick” — that was the perfect icon to sell global warming fear to the public. The graph showed world temperatures essentially flat or slightly declining for 900+ years (the shaft of the hockey stick), and then shooting up dramatically during the 20th century era of human carbon dioxide emissions (the blade of the stick).In 2001 the UN’s IPCC came out with its Third Assessment Report on the state of the climate. The Hockey Stick graph dominated, appearing multiple times, including being the lead graph in the “Summary for Policy Makers” that is the only part of an IPCC report that anyone reads. Here is the version of the Hockey Stick graph that appeared the the SPM of the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report:Now that is seriously scary! The Medieval Warm period — an era between the years of about 1000 and 1300 once generally accepted to have had temperatures warmer than the present — had disappeared. The clear implication was that the earth had had a benign and unchanging climate for about a thousand years, and now humans had entered the picture with their fossil fuels and were rapidly destabilizing the situation.I’m going to provide an overview of what has happened since, but first, here’s the latest. A prominent skeptical climate scientist in Canada named Tim Ball accused Mann of fraud in generating the Hockey Stick graph. The famous quote, from a February 2011 interview of Ball, was “Michael Mann should be in the State Pen, not Penn State.” In March 2011, Mann sued Ball for libel, focusing on that quote, in the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Vancouver. Here is a copy of the Complaint. (Note: In British Columbia, the Supreme Court is not the highest appellate court, but rather the trial-level court for larger cases.) The case then essentially disappeared into limbo for eight plus years. But on Friday, August 23, the British Columbia court dismissed Mann’s claim with prejudice, and also awarded court costs to Ball. As far as I can determine, this was an oral ruling, and no written judgment nor transcript of the ruling yet exists. I have asked Ball to send them along as soon as they exist.The story of Ball’s vindication, and of Mann’s shame, is a somewhat long one, and turns on Mann’s flat refusal to share publicly the data and methodology by which he constructed the Hockey Stick graph. In about 2003 a very talented Canadian mathematician named Steve McIntyre began an effort to replicate the Mann/Bradley/Hughes work. McIntyre started with a request to Mann to provide the underlying data and methodologies (computer programming) that generated the graph. To his surprise, McIntyre was met not with prompt compliance (which would be the sine qua non of actual science) but rather with hostility and evasion. McIntyre started a blog called Climate Audit and began writing lengthy posts about his extensive and unsuccessful efforts to reconstruct the Hockey Stick. Although McIntyre never completely succeeded in perfectly reconstructing the Hockey Stick, over time he gradually established that Mann et al. had adopted a complex methodology that selectively emphasized certain temperature proxies over others in order to reverse-engineer the "shaft" of the stick to get a pre-determined desired outcome.Then came the so-called ClimateGate disclosures in 2009. These were emails between and among many of the main promoters of the climate scare (dubbed by McIntyre the "Hockey Team"). Included in the Climategate releases were emails relating specifically to the methodology of how the graph was created. From the emails, skeptical researchers were then able to identify some of the precise data series that had been used by Mann et al. Astoundingly, they discovered that the graph's creators had truncated inconvenient data in order to get the desired depiction. A website called Just the Facts has a detailed recounting of how this was uncovered. As a key example, consider this graph:The bright pink plus the dotted line in between the two pink portions shows one of the data series used in the construction of the Hockey Stick graph; but the pink portions were deleted when the graph was presented. Obviously, inclusion of these pink portions would have thrown off the nice, flat "shaft" of the stick, while also revealing that this particular group of "proxies" had totally failed at matching the twentieth century rise in temperatures derived from the thermometer record, thus undermining the whole idea that these were valid proxies at all. In other words, Mann et al. had truncated inconvenient data that failed to match the narrative they wanted to present. Most would call this kind of data truncation a clearcut instance of "scientific fraud."This was the state of play in early 2011 when Ball uttered his famous line, “Michael Mann belongs in the State Pen, not Penn State.” Mann then immediately sued Ball for libel.Now, as readers here know, I spent my life in the litigation business. My practice was in the U.S. rather than Canada, but I have good reason to think that many of the basic ground rules would be the same. And one of the basic ground rules is that a plaintiff in civil litigation needs to provide “discovery” to the defendant of whatever factual information is in his possession that would either support or undermine his claims. When Mann brought his case, I was frankly amazed, because it was obvious to me that Ball would request as “discovery” the very data and methods that Mann had been aggressively resisting giving to anyone to check his work. How could Mann’s case survive if he refused to provide this information?Sure enough Mann absolutely refused to provide the underlying information in the Ball litigation. For better or worse, when a litigant does that, a court will try every possible avenue to try to get the parties to resolve the matter, before it will take the ultimate step of resolving the case against the non-compliant litigant. And that is in fact what happened in the Mann/Ball case. The court repeatedly tried to get an agreement that something would be produced that would satisfy Ball, and repeatedly gave Mann more time to comply. Could this really go on for eight years? In the U.S., that would be extraordinary, but not impossible. Maybe in Canada it is less extraordinary. It appears that in 2017 Mann actually agreed (under court pressure) to produce to Ball within 21 days the key technical information about construction of the Hockey Stick graph that Ball was requesting. But the information was not produced. Undoubtedly there have been multiple returns by Ball to the court since then to enforce compliance, finally seeking the dismissal of Mann’s claims as the ultimate sanction. On Friday, the court granted that relief.Here’s a twist that is simply beyond belief. On February 17, 2018, the American Association for the Advancement of Science — the largest professional association of scientists in the world, claiming to have more than 120,000 members — gave its supposedly prestigious “Public Engagement with Science” award to none other than Michael Mann. Here is its announcement of the award. Some choice excerpts:The honor recognizes Mann’s “tireless efforts to communicate the science of climate change to the media, public and policymakers.” In the past year, Mann has had 500 media interviews and appearances and directly reached public audiences via social media. . . . He has also advised actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who spoke about climate change during a 2014 speech delivered to the United Nations.The AAAS did this in the face of the clear demonstration of Mann’s misconduct from the ClimateGate revelations, and in the face of Mann’s ongoing obstruction of proper discovery in the Ball litigation. This whole “climate” thing is truly unbelievable in how it warps the minds of seemingly sane people.Anyway, the bottom line is that, after eight long years, Mann’s lawsuit against Ball has been dismissed “with prejudice” — meaning that he has no right to reinstitute the case. Also, the court has said that it will award at least some “costs” to Ball, although the amount has not yet been determined. Presumably, written opinions and a final judgment will follow, and I will update this post with links to those if and when I receive them. I would expect some triumphant claims of vindication from Ball and his supporters. In light of the court’s decision, Mann will be severely constrained in what he can do in response. Hey — why not produce your data and methods?Will any of this embarrass or rein in the likes of the IPCC, the AAAS, or any of the many mainstream climate-hoax-promoting outlets that continue to publish Mann’s screeds? (Examples: New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post). Don't bet on it. As of today, I can’t even find any coverage of the court result in any “mainstream” outlet.Meanwhile, note that this is only a trial court decision. Theoretically, Mann can appeal, and an appeals court might send this back. On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine that, even if an appeals court reverses and sends the case back, that it won’t condition further proceedings on Mann producing his data and methods. I can’t believe that he will ever do that. The only fair inference at this point is that the Hockey Stick is and always was a scientific fraud.Michael Mann "Hockey Stick" Update: Now Definitively Established To Be Fraud — Manhattan Contrarian”CLIMATE}CLIMATE CHANGE HOAX COLLAPSES AS MICHAEL MANN’S BOGUS “HOCKEY STICK” GRAPH DEFAMATION LAWSUIT DISMISSED BY THE SUPREME COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIAAUGUST 27, 2019 KEN BILLINGSFacebookTwitterEmailShareNatural News – August 26, 2019 by: Mike AdamsFor the past two decades, much of the hysteria about global warming — later re-labeled “climate change” — has been based on the so-called “hockey stick” graph produced by Michael Mann. The graph, shown below, has been used by the IPCC, the media and governments to push global warming hysteria to the point of mass mental illness, where Democrat presidential candidates claim humanity only has 12 years remaining before a climate apocalypse will somehow destroy the planet.But the hockey stick graph is a fraud. A man-made computer software algorithm generated it, and the algorithm is rigged to produce a hockey stick shape no matter what data were entered. Like everything else found in the rigged world of “climate science,” the hockey stick graph was a fraud the day it was generated.Michael Mann didn’t like being called a fraud by his critics, so he sued them for defamation. And late last week, one of those lawsuits was concluded by the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada, which threw out Mann’s lawsuit against Dr. Tim Ball. But there’s more. According to Principia-Scientific:Not only did the court grant Ball’s application for dismissal of the nine-year, multi-million dollar lawsuit, it also took the additional step of awarding full legal costs to Ball. A detailed public statement from the world-renowned skeptical climatologist is expected in due course.This extraordinary outcome is expected to trigger severe legal repercussions for Dr Mann in the U.S. and may prove fatal to climate science claims that modern temperatures are “unprecedented.”Support our mission and enhance your own self-reliance: The laboratory-verified Organic Emergency Survival Bucket provides certified organic, high-nutrition storable food for emergency preparedness. Completely free of corn syrup, MSG, GMOs and other food toxins. Ultra-clean solution for years of food security. Learn more at the Health Ranger Store.Michael Mann refuses to turn over the data behind the graph, insisting on secrecy instead of transparencyThis court decision reportedly stemmed from the fact that Michael Mann refused to turn over “R2 regression numbers” to the court, which would have revealed the data manipulations that led to the rigging of the hockey stick graph. This unwillingness to disclose the graph algorithm and data points reveals the total lack of transparency and scientific integrity that has plagued Mann’s supposed “science” work for decades. As American Thinker explains:Real science, not the phony “consensus” version, requires open access to data, so that skeptics (who play a key role in science) can see if results are reproducible.More from Technocracy.news:Mann’s now proven contempt of court means Ball is entitled to have the court serve upon Mann the fullest punishment. Contempt sanctions could reasonably include the judge ruling that Dr. Ball’s statement that Mann “belongs in the state pen, not Penn. State’ is a precise and true statement of fact. This is because under Canada’s unique ‘Truth Defense’, Mann is now proven to have wilfully hidden his data, so the court may rule he hid it because it is fake. As such, the court must then dismiss Mann’s entire libel suit with costs awarded to Ball and his team.The spectacular rise and fall of climate alarmism’s former golden boy is a courtroom battle with even more ramifications than the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. To much fanfare at the time, Mann had sued Ball for daring to publish the damning comment that Mann “belongs in the state pen, not Penn. State.” Dr Ball brilliantly backed up his exposure of the elaborate international money-making global warming scam in his astonishing book, ‘The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science‘.In his books, articles, radio and television appearances, Dr. Ball has been resolute in his generation-long war against those who corrupted the field of science to which he had selflessly dedicated his life. Now aged 79, Ball is on the cusp of utter vindication. Despite the stresses and strains on himself and his family, Tim has stood at the forefront of those scientists demanding more openness and transparency from government-funded researchers.“Climate science community in crisis”Technocracy.news goes on to explain the ultimate ramifications of this court decision:A bitter and embarrassing defeat for the self-styled ‘Nobel Prize winner’ who acted as if he was the epitome of virtue, this outcome shames not only Michael Mann, but puts the climate science community in crisis. Many hundreds of peer-reviewed papers cite Mann’s work, which is now effectively junked. Despite having deep-pocketed backers willing and able to feed his ego as a publicity-seeking mouthpiece against skeptics, Mann’s credibility as a champion of environmentalism is in tatters. But it gets worse for the litigious Penn State professor. Close behind Dr Ball is celebrated writer Mark Steyn. Steyn also defends himself against another one of Mann’s SLAPP suits – this time in Washington DC. Steyn boldly claims Mann “has perverted the norms of science on an industrial scale.” Esteemed American climate scientist, Dr Judith Curry, has submitted to the court an Amicus Curiae legal brief exposing Mann. The world can now see that his six-year legal gambit to silence his most effective critics and chill scientific debate has spectacularly backfired.Principia-Scientific International also says a “criminal investigation” of Mann is now likely in the United States over allegations that Mann committed scientific fraud in faking his hockey stick chart:Penn State climate scientist, Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann commits contempt of court in the ‘climate science trial of the century.’ Prominent alarmist shockingly defies judge and refuses to surrender data for open court examination. Only possible outcome: Mann’s humiliation, defeat and likely criminal investigation in the U.S.The defendant in the libel trial, the 79-year-old Canadian climatologist, Dr Tim Ball (above, right) is expected to instruct his British Columbia attorneys to trigger mandatory punitive court sanctions, including a ruling that Mann did act with criminal intent when using public funds to commit climate data fraud. Mann’s imminent defeat is set to send shock waves worldwide within the climate science community as the outcome will be both a legal and scientific vindication of U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims that climate scare stories are a “hoax.”As can be seen from the graphs below; Mann’s cherry-picked version of science makes the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) disappear and shows a pronounced upward ‘tick’ in the late 20th century (the blade of his ‘hockey stick’). But below that, Ball’s graph, using more reliable and widely available public data, shows a much warmer MWP, with temperatures hotter than today, and showing current temperatures well within natural variation.The perpetrator of the biggest criminal “assault on science” has now become clear: Dr Mann, utterly damned by his contempt of the court order to show his dodgy data.There can be little doubt that upon the BC Supreme Court ruling that Mann did commit data fraud, over in Washington DC, the EPA’s Scott Pruitt will feel intense pressure from skeptics to initiate a full investigation into Mann, his university and all those conspiring to perpetuate a trillion-dollar carbon tax-raising sting on taxpayers.}Climate change hoax collapses as Michael Mann’s bogus “hockey stick” graph defamation lawsuit dismissed by the Supreme Court of British Columbia - "We shall succeed" - Shiv Chopra‘THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD : GLOBAL and PEER REVIEWEDACCORDING to multiple lines of “peer-reviewed science”, the Medieval Warm Period was indeed ‘global’ and was as warm, if not warmer than today.CLICK here for excellent interactive map of clickable peer-reviewed MWP studies in both North and Southern Hemispheres :THE Medieval Warm Period – A Global Phenomenon*THE ‘INCONVENIENT’ PASTTHERE is absolutely nothing unusual about today’s so-called aka Climate Change.LOOK at how many periods of warmth our planet has enjoyed during the past 10,000 years alone.CIVILISATIONS flourished during those warm periods (“climate optimums”), and collapsed when they ended.DID humans cause the Minoan warm period of about 3,300 years ago?DID humans cause the Roman warm period of about 2,100 years ago?DID humans cause the Medieval warm period of about 1,000 years ago?WHAT about all of those other warm periods? Should we blame Fred Flintstone, perhaps?via @BigJoeBastardi | TwitterIF the downward trend in temperature of the past 3,300 years continues, we could be in a heap of trouble. While our leaders keep on wringing their collective hands over global warming, we could be blindsided by an ice age.ALL this talk about human-caused global warming is sheer nonsense, if not downright fraud. The record shows that both periods of warmth – and periods of cold – hit our planet with almost consistent regularity.Peer Review studies that show the Medieval Warm Period was global and warmer than present :o Study: Earth was warmer in Roman, Medieval Times | The Daily Callero New paper finds more evidence the Medieval Warming Period was global — Published in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecologyo Latest Research: EU & Russian Scientists Confirm Medieval Period Warmer Than Modern Global Warmingo Antarctic warmer than today – An ikaite record of late Holocene climate at the Antarctic Peninsulao THE HOCKEY SCHTICK: New paper finds Medieval Warming Period was ~1°C warmer than current temperatureso New Paper Finds Ocean Temps Were Warmer During Multiple Periods Over Last 2700 Years Than Today | GWPFo Medieval Temps warmer than today : Jenny Lake, Southwest Yukon Territory, Canada – CO² Scienceo Medieval Warm Period was real, global, & warmer than the present’ – China & World – Chinadaily Forumo Evidence for a Global Medieval Warm Period | Watts Up With That?hockey stick graph | Search Results | ClimatismThe Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time -- Part XXFebruary 19, 2019/ Francis MentonSince last October, this series has been sitting at the rather awkward number of 19 (or “XIX”) posts. Time to round it off at an even XX.For those new to this topic, the Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time is the systematic downward adjustment of early-year temperatures in order to create a fake enhanced warming trend, the better to bamboozle voters and politicians to go along with extreme measures to try to avert the impending “climate crisis.” Prior posts in this series have documented large and unexplained downward adjustments at hundreds of stations around the world that are used by official government organizations (in the US, primarily NOAA and NASA) to wipe out early-year high temperatures and thereby proclaim that the latest month or year is “the hottest ever!” To read all prior posts in this series, go to this link.You might ask, with the extensive exposure of these unsupportable downward adjustments of early-year temperatures by official government organizations — accompanied by highly credible accusations of scientific fraud — haven’t the adjusters been cowed by now into a smidgeon of honesty? It sure doesn’t look that way.The latest news comes out of Australia, via the website of Joanne Nova. Nova’s February 17 post is titled “History keeps getting colder — ACORN2 raises Australia’s warming rate by over 20%.” “ACORN2” is a newly revised and updated temperature series for Australia, with temperatures going back to 1910 based on records from 112 weather stations on the continent, some 57 of which have records that go back all the way to the 1910 start date. “ACORN” stands for Australian Climate Observations Reference Network. The ACORN2 data compilation is so called to distinguish it from ACORN1, which was only released some 7 years ago in 2012. The people who put out these things are the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.According to Nova, the latest temperature adjustments were released “oh-so-quietly.” I guess that the plan is just to start using the new figures as the historical comparisons and bet that journalists will be too stupid or ignorant to figure out that the earlier temperatures have been altered. That’s actually a pretty good bet. However, down in Australia they do have a hard-working group of independent researchers who are on top of this issue. One of them is Nova, and another is Chris Gillham. Gillham has done his own very detailed analysis of the adjustments in the ACORN2 report, and has also put up a post on same at Watts Up With That. So there is plenty of information out there for intelligent people to make an independent judgment.A few excerpts from Nova:Once again we find that the oldest thermometers were apparently reading artificially high, even though many were newish in 1910 and placed in approved Stevenson screens. This is also despite the additional urban warming effect of a population that grew 400% since then. What are the odds?! Fortunately . . ., sorry scientists have uncovered the true readings from the old biased thermometers which they explain carefully in a 67 page impenetrable document. . . . The new ACORN version has nearly doubled the rate of warming in the minima of the longest running stations.Nova has put together several charts to show the magnitude of the adjustments, not only from ACORN1 to ACORN2, but also from the prior AWAP compilation to ACORN1. To no one’s surprise, each round of adjustments makes the earlier years cooler, and thus enhances the apparent warming trend. Here is Nova’s chart showing the amount of warming from the beginning to the end of the series, for each of AWAP, ACORN1 and ACORN2, and for minimum, mean and maximum temperatures:For example, the average minimum temperature had increased over the century covered by 0.84 deg C in the AWAP series. That increased to 1.02 deg C in the ACORN1 series, and to 1.22 deg C in the ACORN2 series.You need to go over to Gillham’s work to see how these changes derive mostly from decreases in early-year temperatures. Here is a chart from Gillham on the changes to minimum temperatures at the 57 stations that go back all the way to the 1910 start:As you can see, the “raw” and “v1” temperatures tend to be close — sometimes one higher, sometimes the other. But v2 is significantly lower across the board in the earlier years. Then, suddenly, in the recent years, it tracks the “raw” almost perfectly.Do they offer a justification for these downward adjustments? Yes, but nothing remotely satisfactory. The one-word explanation is “homogenization.” OK, we understand what that is. For example, sometimes a station moves, and that causes a discontinuity, where, say, the new location is systematically 0.1 deg C lower than the old. An adjustment needs to be made. But these sorts of adjustments should cancel out. How is it possible that every time some official meteorological organization anywhere in the world makes some of these “homogenization” adjustments, the result is that earlier years get colder and the supposed “global warming” trend gets enhanced — always to support a narrative of “climate crisis.”Well, fortunately, this time the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has put out a very long 57-page document explaining what they have done. Here it is. Is it any help?As far as I am concerned, this is the definitive proof of the fraud. If this were even an attempt at real, credible science, the proponents would put out a document complete with the details of the adjustments — and all of their computer code — so that an independent researcher could replicate the work. Nothing like that is here. This is pure bafflegab. Nova calls it “impenetrable,” which is way too nice a word as far as I’m concerned. Let me give you a small taste:3. HOMOGENISATION METHODS3.1 Detection of inhomogeneities - use of multiple detection methods in parallelIn version 1 of ACORN-SAT, a single statistical method for detection of inhomogeneities was used (Trewin, 2012). This method was based closely on the Pairwise Homogenisation Algorithm (PHA) developed by Menne and Williams (2009), and involves pairwise comparison of data between the candidate station and all sufficiently well-correlated stations in the region, with the Standard Normal Homogeneity Test (SNHT) (Alexandersson, 1986) used to identify significant breakpoints in the difference series. The test was carried out separately on monthly mean anomalies (as a single time series with 12 data points per year), and seasonal mean anomalies, with a breakpoint flagged for further assessment if it was identified in either the monthly series, or (within a window of ± 1 year) in at least two of the four seasons. Further details of the implementation of the PHA in the ACORN-SAT dataset are available in Trewin (2012).A range of other detection methods have been developed in recent years, many of which were the subject of the COST-HOME intercomparison project (Venema et al., 2012). Three of these methods were selected for use in ACORN-SAT version 2, the selection primarily based on ease of implementation. These methods were:• • HOMER version 2.6, joint detection (Mestre et al., 2013)• • MASH version 3.03 (Szentimrey, 2008).• • RHTests version 4 (Wang et al., 2010).All of these methods, which use different statistical approaches, have been successfully used across a range of networks since their development. Further details on their implementation are given in Appendix C.My favorite part is that reference at the end to “Appendix C.” This document has no Appendix C. There are three appendices, numbered Appendix 1, Appendix 2 and Appendix 3. That’s about the intellectual level we are dealing with.Anyway, try going to this document and see if you can figure out what they are doing. Believe me, you can’t.And finally: over the years as I have accumulated posts on this topic, several commenters have suggested that I must be alleging some kind of conspiracy among government climate scientists in making these adjustments. I mean, without that, how does it come about that the Australians just happen to be making the exact same kinds of adjustments as NASA, NOAA, and for that matter, as the Brits at the Hadley Center in the UK?If your brain is wondering how that could be, I would suggest that we have the same kind of phenomenon going on here as the hate crime hoax phenomenon. How does Jussie Smollett just happen to fake a hate crime playing right into the progressive narrative of the moment — just as did the Duke lacrosse team hoaxer, and the Virginia fraternity hoaxer, and the Harvard Law School black tape hoaxers, and many dozens of others? (Here is a compilation of some 15 recent hate crime hoaxes.) Did they all coordinate in one grand conspiracy? Or did they all just realize what was needed from them to support their “team” and its narrative?The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time -- Part XX — Manhattan Contrarian”EVIDENCE MOUNTS SHOWIING MEDIEVAL WARMING REAL AND GLOBAL.Medieval warm periodYou are browsing the search results for "Medieval warm period"New Study: East Antarctica Was Up To 6°C Warmer Than Today During The Medieval Warm PeriodBy Kenneth Richard on15. October 2020As recently as 2000 to 1000 years ago, spanning the Roman to Medieval Warm Periods, East Antarctica was 5-6°C warmer than it is today. The consequent ice melt resulted in >60 meters higher water levels in East Antarctica’s lakes. East Antarctica has been rapidly cooling in recent decades, with magnitudes reaching -0.7°C to -2.0°C per […]Posted in Antarctic, Medieval Warm Period, Paleo-climatology | 4 ResponsesNew Study: Medieval Warm Period Not Limited To North Atlantic, But Occurred In South America As WellBy P Gosselin on3. November 2018Global warming alarmist scientists like claiming that the well documented Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was merely a regional phenomenon, and not global. However a new publication by Lüning et al adds yet another study that shows the warm period from 1000 years ago was indeed global. ================================ Image source: here. Preindustrial climate change in South […]Posted in Paleo-climatology | 6 ResponsesNew Paleoclimate Findings Show Medieval Warm Period Across Africa And Arabia…Natural Climate DriversBy P Gosselin on10. February 2018Paleoclimate data still spotty and incomplete, leaving climate models vague, uncalibrated and filled with uncertainty Paleo-climatological data, used for the reconstruction of past climate from proxy records such as ice cores, tree rings, sediment cores etc., have not had adequate geographical coverage. Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania, where a sediment core was extracted. Credit: Andreas31, CC BY-SA 3.0. For […]Posted in Paleo-climatology | 13 ResponsesNew Study Confirms Medieval Warm Period Was Indeed Global, And As Warm As TodayBy P Gosselin on29. August 2017Here’s another blow to the global warming alarmist scientists, who have been claiming that the Medieval Warm Period was a local, North Atlantic phenomenon, and did not really exist globally. What follows is a report on yet another paper contradicting this now worn out claim. =================================== China: Warm phase of the 20th century was not […]Posted in Paleo-climatology | 26 ResponsesBody Of Proof: Large Number Of Studies Show Medieval Warm Period “Prominent In Southern Hemisphere”By P Gosselin on31. May 2016Remember how in the late 1990s/early 2000s the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was made to disappear, and it was claimed that it was mainly a local, North Atlantic phenomenon. Unfortunately for those trumpeting this claim, a comprehensive worldwide survey of scientific literature is now showing that the MWP was in fact a global phenomenon, suggesting large-scale natural […]Posted in Cooling/Temperature, Paleo-climatology | 2 ResponsesNew Comprehensive Map By Scientists Confirms Medieval Warm Period Was Real And Global, Climate Models FaultyBy P Gosselin on23. December 2015One of the biggest obstacles global warming alarmists have had to deal with is the inconvenient existence of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), as there are reams of literature showing that this period was as warm or even warmer than today. Photo right: Fritz Vahrenholt (Die kalte Sonne) Yet, a number of global warming activists and alarmist […]Posted in Paleo-climatology | 41 ResponsesAgain! 2nd Baltic Sea Report, Hans Von Storch, Show Medieval Warm Period 0.5°C Warmer Than Today!By P Gosselin on10. June 2015How many times must a hockey stick be broken, before alarmists stop wetting their beds? … The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind. ====================================== Second climate status report on the Baltic Sea Region: Medieval Warm Period was Half A Degree Warmer Than Today By Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt [Translated, edited by […]Posted in CO2 and GHG, Cooling/Temperature, Paleo-climatology | 31 ResponsesMore Glacier Studies Confirm Roman And Medieval Warm Periods Were Just As Warm As TodayBy P Gosselin on30. October 2014New studies confirm: Glaciers in the Alps already had “fevers” during the Roman and Medieval warm periods By Sebastian Lüning and Fritz Vahrenholt (Translated, edited, condensed by P Gosselin) Everywhere activists and climate alarmists are claiming climate change is happening faster than ever and that the earth is dangerously approaching a tipping point. For example […]Posted in Glaciers | 11 ResponsesGerman Public Television Stuns Its Readers, Concedes Medieval Warm Period May Have Been 0.5°C Warmer Than Today!By P Gosselin on28. December 2013In Germany climate science used to be considered completely settled. Global temperatures had been pretty much steady for a thousand years before skyrocketing upwards as soon as man really started industrializing about 150 years ago, Germans were told again and again. But today Germany’s major media are beginning to realize that this view is perhaps quite naïve […]Posted in Media / Bias, Paleo-climatology, Scepticism, Solar Sciences, Tectonics/Volcanoes | 18 ResponsesTibetan Temperature Reconstruction Shows Medieval Warm Period Was Warmer Than Today!By P Gosselin on13. April 2013A team of scientists led by HE YuXin of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Hong Kong examined two lake cores extracted from the Tibetan Plateau in order to reconstruct the past temperature development. Source: East_Asia_topographic_map.png: Ksiom, the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 The two cores coming from two different lakes […]Posted in Paleo-climatology, Solar Sciences | 2 ResponsesMedieval Warm Period Was Not “Just A Local Phenomenon” – Study Also Finds It In South AmericaBy P Gosselin on13. October 2012Dr. Sebastian Lüning’s and Prof Fritz Vahrenholt’s website has an article today. Photo source Marturius / License:Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported ============================ No North Atlantic Phenomenon: Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age Found in the Andes (Translated from the German by P Gosselin) The Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period […]Posted in Paleo-climatology | 2 ResponsesMedieval Warm Period And Little Ice Age Show Up In South America Too – Far Far Away From North AtlanticBy P Gosselin on6. June 2012Based on data from a few carefully selected tree rings, dogmatic warmist scientists like to insist that the Medieval Warm Period really did not exist globally and was only a local North Atlantic phenomenon. The climate, they tell us, was pretty much steady over the last couple thousand years – until man began to prosper […]Posted in Drought and Deserts, Paleo-climatology, Solar Sciences | 3 Responses

What are some of the worst industrial disasters that have occurred in the world?

Union CarbideBhopal gas tragedy.The Bhopal disaster, also referred to as the Bhopal gas tragedy, was a gas leak incident on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. It is considered to be the world's worst industrial disaster.[1][2]Over 500,000 people were exposed to methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas. The highly toxic substance made its way into and around the small towns located near the plant.[3]Bhopal disasterMemorial by Dutch artist Ruth Kupferschmidt for those killed and disabled by the 1984 toxic gas releaseDate2 December 1984 – 3 December 1984LocationBhopal, Madhya Pradesh, IndiaCoordinates23°16′51″N 77°24′38″EAlso known asBhopal gas tragedyCauseMethyl isocyanate leak from Union Carbide India Limited plantDeathsAt least 3,787; over 16,000 claimedNon-fatal injuriesAt least 558,125Estimates vary on the death toll. The official immediate death toll was 2,259. The government of Madhya Pradesh confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release.[4]A government affidavit in 2006 stated that the leak caused 558,125 injuries, including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries.[5]Others estimate that 8,000 died within two weeks, and another 8,000 or more have since died from gas-related diseases.[6]The cause of the disaster remains under debate. The Indian government and local activists argue that slack management and deferred maintenance created a situation where routine pipe maintenance caused a backflow of water into a MIC tank, triggering the disaster. Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) argues water entered the tank through an act of sabotage.The owner of the factory, UCIL, was majority owned by UCC, with Indian Government-controlled banks and the Indian public holding a 49.1 percent stake. In 1989, UCC paid $470 million (equivalent to $845 million in 2018) to settle litigation stemming from the disaster. In 1994, UCC sold its stake in UCIL to Eveready Industries India Limited (EIIL), which subsequently merged with McLeod Russel (India) Ltd. Eveready ended clean-up on the site in 1998, when it terminated its 99-year lease and turned over control of the site to the state government of Madhya Pradesh. Dow Chemical Company purchased UCC in 2001, seventeen years after the disaster.Civil and criminal cases filed in the United States against UCC and Warren Anderson, UCC CEO at the time of the disaster, were dismissed and redirected to Indian courts on multiple occasions between 1986 and 2012, as the US courts focused on UCIL being a standalone entity of India. Civil and criminal cases were also filed in the District Court of Bhopal, India, involving UCC, UCIL and UCC CEO Anderson.[7][8]In June 2010, seven Indian nationals who were UCIL employees in 1984, including the former UCIL chairman, were convicted in Bhopal of causing death by negligence and sentenced to two years imprisonment and a fine of about $2,000 each, the maximum punishment allowed by Indian law. All were released on bail shortly after the verdict. An eighth former employee was also convicted, but died before the judgement was passed.BackgroundThe UCIL factory was built in 1969 to produce the pesticide Sevin (UCC's brand name for carbaryl) using methyl isocyanate (MIC) as an intermediate.[6]An MIC production plant was added to the UCIL site in 1979.[9][10][11]The chemical process employed in the Bhopal plant had methylamine reacting with phosgene to form MIC, which was then reacted with 1-naphthol to form the final product, carbaryl. Another manufacturer, Bayer, also used this MIC-intermediate process at the chemical plant once owned by UCC at Institute, West Virginia, in the United States.[12][13]After the Bhopal plant was built, other manufacturers (including Bayer) produced carbaryl without MIC, though at a greater manufacturing cost. This "route" differed from the MIC-free routes used elsewhere, in which the same raw materials were combined in a different manufacturing order, with phosgene first reacting with naphthol to form a chloroformate ester, which was then reacted with methylamine. In the early 1980s, the demand for pesticides had fallen, but production continued, leading to build-up of stores of unused MIC where that method was used.[6][12]Earlier leaksIn 1976, two local trade unions complained of pollution within the plant.[6][14]In 1981, a worker was accidentally splashed with phosgene as he was carrying out a maintenance job of the plant's pipes. In a panic, he removed his gas mask and inhaled a large amount of toxic phosgene gas, leading to his death just 72 hours later.[6][14]Following these events, journalist Rajkumar Keswani began investigating and published his findings in Bhopal's local paper Rapat, in which he urged "Wake up people of Bhopal, you are on the edge of a volcano".[15][16]In January 1982, a phosgene leak exposed 24 workers, all of whom were admitted to a hospital. None of the workers had been ordered to wear protective masks. One month later, in February 1982, an MIC leak affected 18 workers. In August 1982, a chemical engineer came into contact with liquid MIC, resulting in burns over 30 percent of his body. Later that same year, in October 1982, there was another MIC leak. In attempting to stop the leak, the MIC supervisor suffered severe chemical burns and two other workers were severely exposed to the gases. During 1983 and 1984, there were leaks of MIC, chlorine, monomethylamine, phosgene, and carbon tetrachloride, sometimes in combination.[6][14]Leakage and its effectsLiquid MIC storageThe Bhopal UCIL facility housed three underground 68,000-liter liquid MIC storage tanks: E610, E611, and E619. In the months leading up to the December leak, liquid MIC production was in progress and being used to fill these tanks. UCC safety regulations specified that no one tank should be filled more than 50% (here, 30 tons) with liquid MIC. Each tank was pressurized with inert nitrogen gas. This pressurization allowed liquid MIC to be pumped out of each tank as needed, and also kept impurities out of the tanks.[17]In late October 1984, tank E610 lost the ability to effectively contain most of its nitrogen gas pressure, which meant that the liquid MIC contained within could not be pumped out. At the time of this failure, tank E610 contained 42 tons of liquid MIC.[17][18]Shortly after this failure, MIC production was halted at the Bhopal facility, and parts of the plant were shut down for maintenance. Maintenance included the shutdown of the plant's flare tower so that a corroded pipe could be repaired.[17]With the flare tower still out of service, production of carbaryl was resumed in late November, using MIC stored in the two tanks still in service. An attempt to re-establish pressure in tank E610 on 1 December failed, so the 42 tons of liquid MIC contained within still could not be pumped out of it.[18]The releaseTank 610 in 2010. During decontamination of the plant, tank 610 was removed from its foundation and left aside.Methylamine (1) reacts with phosgene (2) producing methyl isocyanate (3) which reacts with 1-naphthol (4) to yield carbaryl (5)By early December 1984, most of the plant's MIC related safety systems were malfunctioning and many valves and lines were in poor condition. In addition, several vent gas scrubbers had been out of service as well as the steam boiler, intended to clean the pipes.[6]During the late evening hours of 2 December 1984, water was believed to have entered a side pipe and into Tank E610 whilst trying to unclog it, which contained 42 tons of MIC that had been there since late October.[6]The introduction of water into the tank subsequently resulted in a runaway exothermic reaction, which was accelerated by contaminants, high ambient temperatures and various other factors, such as the presence of iron from corroding non-stainless steel pipelines.[6]The pressure in tank E610, although initially normal at 10:30 p.m., had increased by a factor of five to 10 psi (34.5 to 69 kPa) by 11 p.m. Two different senior refinery employees assumed the reading was instrumentation malfunction.[19]By 11:30 p.m., workers in the MIC area were feeling the effects of minor exposure to MIC gas, and began to look for a leak. One was found by 11:45 p.m., and reported to the MIC supervisor on duty at the time. The decision was made to address the problem after a 12:15 a.m. tea break, and in the meantime, employees were instructed to continue looking for leaks. The incident was discussed by MIC area employees during the break.[19]In the five minutes after the tea break ended at 12:40 a.m., the reaction in tank E610 reached a critical state at an alarming speed. Temperatures in the tank were off the scale, maxed out beyond 25 °C (77 °F), and the pressure in the tank was indicated at 40 psi (275.8 kPa). One employee witnessed a concrete slab above tank E610 crack as the emergency relief valve burst open, and pressure in the tank continued to increase to 55 psi (379.2 kPa) even after atmospheric venting of toxic MIC gas had begun.[19]Direct atmospheric venting should have been prevented or at least partially mitigated by at least three safety devices which were malfunctioning, not in use, insufficiently sized or otherwise rendered inoperable:[20][21]A refrigeration system meant to cool tanks containing liquid MIC, shut down in January 1982, and whose freon had been removed in June 1984. Since the MIC storage system assumed refrigeration, its high temperature alarm, set to sound at 11 °C (52 °F) had long since been disconnected, and tank storage temperatures ranged between 15 °C (59 °F) and 40 °C (104 °F)[22]A flare tower, to burn the MIC gas as it escaped, which had had a connecting pipe removed for maintenance, and was improperly sized to neutralise a leak of the size produced by tank E610A vent gas scrubber, which had been deactivated at the time and was in 'standby' mode, and similarly had insufficient caustic soda and power to safely stop a leak of the magnitude producedAbout 30 tonnes of MIC escaped from the tank into the atmosphere in 45 to 60 minutes.[3]This would increase to 40 tonnes within two hours time.[23]The gases were blown in a southeasterly direction over Bhopal.[6][24]A UCIL employee triggered the plant's alarm system at 12:50 a.m. as the concentration of gas in and around the plant became difficult to tolerate.[19][23]Activation of the system triggered two siren alarms: one that sounded inside the UCIL plant, and a second directed outward to the public and the city of Bhopal. The two siren systems had been decoupled from one another in 1982, so that it was possible to leave the factory warning siren on while turning off the public one, and this is exactly what was done: the public siren briefly sounded at 12:50 a.m. and was quickly turned off, as per company procedure meant to avoid alarming the public around the factory over tiny leaks.[23][25][26]Workers, meanwhile, evacuated the UCIL plant, travelling upwind.Bhopal's superintendent of police was informed by telephone, by a town inspector, that residents of the neighbourhood of Chola (about 2 km from the plant) were fleeing a gas leak at approximately 1 a.m.[25]Calls to the UCIL plant by police between 1:25 and 2:10 a.m. gave assurances twice that "everything is OK", and on the last attempt made, "we don't know what has happened, sir".[25]With the lack of timely information exchange between UCIL and Bhopal authorities, the city's Hamidia Hospital was first told that the gas leak was suspected to be ammonia, then phosgene. Finally, they received an updated report that it was "MIC" (rather than "methyl isocyanate"), which hospital staff had never heard of, had no antidote for, and received no immediate information about.[27]The MIC gas leak emanating from tank E610 petered out at approximately 2:00 a.m. Fifteen minutes later, the plant's public siren was sounded for an extended period of time, after first having been quickly silenced an hour and a half earlier.[28]Some minutes after the public siren sounded, a UCIL employee walked to a police control room to both inform them of the leak (their first acknowledgement that one had occurred at all), and that "the leak had been plugged."[28]Most city residents who were exposed to the MIC gas were first made aware of the leak by exposure to the gas itself, or by opening their doors to investigate commotion, rather than having been instructed to shelter in place, or to evacuate before the arrival of the gas in the first place.[26]Acute effectsReversible reaction of glutathione (top) with methyl isocyanate (MIC, middle) allows the MIC to be transported into the bodyThe initial effects of exposure were coughing, severe eye irritation and a feeling of suffocation, burning in the respiratory tract, blepharospasm, breathlessness, stomach pains and vomiting. People awakened by these symptoms fled away from the plant. Those who ran inhaled more than those who had a vehicle to ride. Owing to their height, children and other people of shorter stature inhaled higher concentrations, as methyl isocyanate gas is approximately twice as dense as air and hence in an open environment has a tendency to fall toward the ground.[29]Thousands of people had died by the following morning. Primary causes of deaths were choking, reflexogenic circulatory collapse and pulmonary oedema. Findings during autopsies revealed changes not only in the lungs but also cerebral oedema, tubular necrosis of the kidneys, fatty degeneration of the liver and necrotising enteritis.[30]The stillbirth rate increased by up to 300% and neonatal mortality rate by around 200%.[6]Gas cloud compositionApart from MIC, based on laboratory simulation conditions, the gas cloud most likely also contained chloroform, dichloromethane, hydrogen chloride, methylamine, dimethylamine, trimethylamine and carbon dioxide, that was either present in the tank or was produced in the storage tank when MIC, chloroform and water reacted. The gas cloud, composed mainly of materials denser than air, stayed close to the ground and spread in the southeasterly direction affecting the nearby communities.[29]The chemical reactions may have produced a liquid or solid aerosol.[31]Laboratory investigations by CSIR and UCC scientists failed to demonstrate the presence of hydrogen cyanide.[29][32]Immediate aftermathIn the immediate aftermath, the plant was closed to outsiders (including UCC) by the Indian government, which subsequently failed to make data public, contributing to the confusion. The initial investigation was conducted entirely by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Central Bureau of Investigation. The UCC chairman and CEO Warren Anderson, together with a technical team, immediately traveled to India. Upon arrival Anderson was placed under house arrest and urged by the Indian government to leave the country within 24 hours. Union Carbide organized a team of international medical experts, as well as supplies and equipment, to work with the local Bhopal medical community, and the UCC technical team began assessing the cause of the gas leak.The health care system immediately became overloaded. In the severely affected areas, nearly 70 percent were under-qualified doctors. Medical staff were unprepared for the thousands of casualties. Doctors and hospitals were not aware of proper treatment methods for MIC gas inhalation.[6]:6There were mass funerals and cremations. Photographer Pablo Bartholemew, on commission with press agency Rapho, took an iconic color photograph of a burial on 4 December, Bhopal gas disaster girl. Another photographer present, Raghu Rai, took a black and white photo. The photographers did not ask for the identity of the father or child as she was buried, and no relative has since confirmed it. As such, the identity of the girl remains unknown. Both photos became symbolic of the suffering of victims of the Bhopal disaster, and Bartholomew's went on to win the 1984 World Press Photo of the Year.[33]Within a few days, trees in the vicinity became barren and bloated animal carcasses had to be disposed of. 170,000 people were treated at hospitals and temporary dispensaries, and 2,000 buffalo, goats, and other animals were collected and buried. Supplies, including food, became scarce owing to suppliers' safety fears. Fishing was prohibited causing further supply shortages.[6]Lacking any safe alternative, on 16 December, tanks 611 and 619 were emptied of the remaining MIC by reactivating the plant and continuing the manufacture of pesticide. Despite safety precautions such as having water carrying helicopters continually overflying the plant, this led to a second mass evacuation from Bhopal. The Government of India passed the "Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster Act" that gave the government rights to represent all victims, whether or not in India. Complaints of lack of information or misinformation were widespread. An Indian government spokesman said, "Carbide is more interested in getting information from us than in helping our relief work".[6]Formal statements were issued that air, water, vegetation and foodstuffs were safe, but warned not to consume fish. The number of children exposed to the gases was at least 200,000.[6]Within weeks, the State Government established a number of hospitals, clinics and mobile units in the gas-affected area to treat the victims.Subsequent legal actionVictims of Bhopal disaster march in September 2006 demanding the extradition of American Warren Anderson from the United States.Legal proceedings involving UCC, the United States and Indian governments, local Bhopal authorities, and the disaster victims started immediately after the catastrophe. The Indian Government passed the Bhopal Gas Leak Act in March 1985, allowing the Government of India to act as the legal representative for victims of the disaster,[34]leading to the beginning of legal proceedings. Initial lawsuits were generated in the United States federal court system. On 17 April 1985, Federal District court judge John F. Keenan (overseeing one lawsuit) suggested that "'fundamental human decency' required Union Carbide to provide between $5 million and $10 million to immediately help the injured" and suggested the money could be quickly distributed through the International Red Cross.[35]UCC, on the notion that doing so did not constitute an admission of liability and the figure could be credited toward any future settlement or judgement, offered a $5 million relief fund two days later.[35]The Indian government turned down the offer.[29]In March 1986 UCC proposed a settlement figure, endorsed by plaintiffs' U.S. attorneys, of $350 million that would, according to the company, "generate a fund for Bhopal victims of between $500–600 million over 20 years". In May, litigation was transferred from the United States to Indian courts by a U.S. District Court ruling. Following an appeal of this decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the transfer, judging, in January 1987, that UCIL was a "separate entity, owned, managed and operated exclusively by Indian citizens in India".[34]The Government of India refused the offer from Union Carbide and claimed US$3.3 billion.[6]The Indian Supreme Court told both sides to come to an agreement and "start with a clean slate" in November 1988.[34]Eventually, in an out-of-court settlement reached in February 1989, Union Carbide agreed to pay US$470 million for damages caused in the Bhopal disaster.[6]The amount was immediately paid.Throughout 1990, the Indian Supreme Court heard appeals against the settlement. In October 1991, the Supreme Court upheld the original $470 million, dismissing any other outstanding petitions that challenged the original decision. The Court ordered the Indian government "to purchase, out of settlement fund, a group medical insurance policy to cover 100,000 persons who may later develop symptoms" and cover any shortfall in the settlement fund. It also requested UCC and its subsidiary UCIL "voluntarily" fund a hospital in Bhopal, at an estimated $17 million, to specifically treat victims of the Bhopal disaster. The company agreed to this.[34]Post-settlement activityIn 1991, the local Bhopal authorities charged Anderson, who had retired in 1986, with manslaughter, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. He was declared a fugitive from justice by the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bhopal on 1 February 1992 for failing to appear at the court hearings in a culpable homicide case in which he was named the chief defendant. Orders were passed to the Government of India to press for an extradition from the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the decision of the lower federal courts in October 1993, meaning that victims of the Bhopal disaster could not seek damages in a U.S. court.[34]In 2004, the Indian Supreme Court ordered the Indian government to release any remaining settlement funds to victims. And in September 2006, the Welfare Commission for Bhopal Gas Victims announced that all original compensation claims and revised petitions had been "cleared".[34]The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City upheld the dismissal of remaining claims in the case of Bano v. Union Carbide Corporation in 2006. This move blocked plaintiffs' motions for class certification and claims for property damages and remediation. In the view of UCC, "the ruling reaffirms UCC's long-held positions and finally puts to rest—both procedurally and substantively—the issues raised in the class action complaint first filed against Union Carbide in 1999 by Haseena Bi and several organisations representing the residents of Bhopal".[34]In June 2010, seven former employees of UCIL, all Indian nationals and many in their 70s, were convicted of causing death by negligence: Keshub Mahindra, former non-executive chairman of Union Carbide India Limited; V. P. Gokhale, managing director; Kishore Kamdar, vice-president; J. Mukund, works manager; S. P. Chowdhury, production manager; K. V. Shetty, plant superintendent; and S. I. Qureshi, production assistant. They were each sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and fined ₹100,000 (equivalent to ₹170,000 or US$2,400 in 2018). All were released on bail shortly after the verdict.US federal class action litigation, Sahu v. Union Carbide and Warren Anderson, was filed in 1999 under the U.S. Alien Torts Claims Act (ATCA), which provides for civil remedies for "crimes against humanity."[36]It sought damages for personal injury, medical monitoring and injunctive relief in the form of clean-up of the drinking water supplies for residential areas near the Bhopal plant. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2012 and the subsequent appeal was denied.[37]Former UCC CEO Anderson, then 92 years old, died on 29 September 2014.[38]Long-term effectsIn 2018, The Atlantic called it the "world’s worst industrial disaster."[1]Long-term health effectsSome data about the health effects are still not available. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) was forbidden to publish health effect data until 1994.[6]A total of 36 wards were marked by the authorities as being "gas affected," affecting a population of 520,000. Of these, 200,000 were below 15 years of age, and 3,000 were pregnant women. The official immediate death toll was 2,259, and in 1991, 3,928 deaths had been officially certified. Ingrid Eckerman estimated 8,000 died within two weeks.[6][39]The government of Madhya Pradesh confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release.[4]Later, the affected area was expanded to include 700,000 citizens. A government affidavit in 2006 stated the leak caused 558,125 injuries including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries.[5]A cohort of 80,021 exposed people was registered, along with a control group, a cohort of 15,931 people from areas not exposed to MIC. Nearly every year since 1986, they have answered the same questionnaire. It shows overmortality and overmorbidity in the exposed group. Bias and confounding factors cannot be excluded from the study. Because of migration and other factors, 75% of the cohort is lost, as the ones who moved out are not followed.[6][40]A number of clinical studies are performed. The quality varies, but the different reports support each other.[6]Studied and reported long term health effects are:Eyes: Chronic conjunctivitis, scars on cornea, corneal opacities, early cataractsRespiratory tracts: Obstructive and/or restrictive disease, pulmonary fibrosis, aggravation of TB and chronic bronchitisNeurological system: Impairment of memory, finer motor skills, numbness etc.Psychological problems: Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)Children's health: Peri- and neonatal death rates increased. Failure to grow, intellectual impairment, etc.Missing or insufficient fields for research are female reproduction, chromosomal aberrations, cancer, immune deficiency, neurological sequelae, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and children born after the disaster. Late cases that might never be highlighted are respiratory insufficiency, cardiac insufficiency (cor pulmonale), cancer and tuberculosis. Bhopal now has high rates of birth defects and records a miscarriage rate 7x higher than the national average.[16]A 2014 report in Mother Jones quotes a "spokesperson for the Bhopal Medical Appeal, which runs free health clinics for survivors" as saying "An estimated 120,000 to 150,000 survivors still struggle with serious medical conditions including nerve damage, growth problems, gynecological disorders, respiratory issues, birth defects, and elevated rates of cancer and tuberculosis."[41]Health careThe Government of India had focused primarily on increasing the hospital-based services for gas victims thus hospitals had been built after the disaster. When UCC wanted to sell its shares in UCIL, it was directed by the Supreme Court to finance a 500-bed hospital for the medical care of the survivors. Thus, Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC) was inaugurated in 1998 and was obliged to give free care for survivors for eight years. BMHRC was a 350-bedded super speciality hospital where heart surgery and hemodialysis were done. There was a dearth of gynaecology, obstetrics and paediatrics. Eight mini-units (outreach health centres) were started and free health care for gas victims were to be offered until 2006.[6]The management had also faced problems with strikes, and the quality of the health care being disputed.[42][43]Sambhavna Trust is a charitable trust, registered in 1995, that gives modern as well as ayurvedic treatments to gas victims, free of charge.[6][44]Environmental rehabilitationWhen the factory was closed in 1986, pipes, drums and tanks were sold. The MIC and the Sevin plants are still there, as are storages of different residues. Isolation material is falling down and spreading.[6]The area around the plant was used as a dumping area for hazardous chemicals. In 1982 tubewells in the vicinity of the UCIL factory had to be abandoned and tests in 1989 performed by UCC's laboratory revealed that soil and water samples collected from near the factory and inside the plant were toxic to fish.[45]Several other studies had also shown polluted soil and groundwater in the area. Reported polluting compounds include 1-naphthol, naphthalene, Sevin, tarry residue, mercury, toxic organochlorines, volatile organochlorine compounds, chromium, copper, nickel, lead, hexachloroethane, hexachlorobutadiene, and the pesticide HCH.[6]In order to provide safe drinking water to the population around the UCIL factory, Government of Madhya Pradesh presented a scheme for improvement of water supply.[46]In December 2008, the Madhya Pradesh High Court decided that the toxic waste should be incinerated at Ankleshwar in Gujarat, which was met by protests from activists all over India.[47]On 8 June 2012, the Centre for incineration of toxic Bhopal waste agreed to pay ₹250 million (US$3.6 million) to dispose of UCIL chemical plants waste in Germany.[48]On 9 August 2012, Supreme court directed the Union and Madhya Pradesh Governments to take immediate steps for disposal of toxic waste lying around and inside the factory within six months.[49]A U.S. court rejected the lawsuit blaming UCC for causing soil and water pollution around the site of the plant and ruled that responsibility for remedial measures or related claims rested with the State Government and not with UCC.[50]In 2005, the state government invited various Indian architects to enter their "concept for development of a memorial complex for Bhopal gas tragedy victims at the site of Union Carbide". In 2011, a conference was held on the site, with participants from European universities which was aimed for the same.[51][52]Occupational and habitation rehabilitation33 of the 50 planned work-sheds for gas victims started. All except one was closed down by 1992. 1986, the MP government invested in the Special Industrial Area Bhopal. 152 of the planned 200 work sheds were built and in 2000, 16 were partially functioning. It was estimated that 50,000 persons need alternative jobs, and that less than 100 gas victims had found regular employment under the government's scheme. The government also planned 2,486 flats in two- and four-story buildings in what is called the "widow's colony" outside Bhopal. The water did not reach the upper floors and it was not possible to keep cattle which were their primary occupation. Infrastructure like buses, schools, etc. were missing for at least a decade.[6]Economic rehabilitationImmediate relieves were decided two days after the tragedy. Relief measures commenced in 1985 when food was distributed for a short period along with ration cards.[6]Madhya Pradesh government's finance department allocated ₹874 million (US$13 million) for victim relief in July 1985.[53][54]Widow pension of ₹200 (US$2.90)/per month (later ₹750 (US$11)) were provided. The government also decided to pay ₹1,500 (US$22) to families with monthly income ₹500 (US$7.20) or less. As a result of the interim relief, more children were able to attend school, more money was spent on treatment and food, and housing also eventually improved. From 1990 interim relief of ₹200 (US$2.90) was paid to everyone in the family who was born before the disaster.[6]The final compensation, including interim relief for personal injury was for the majority ₹25,000 (US$360). For death claim, the average sum paid out was ₹62,000 (US$900). Each claimant were to be categorised by a doctor. In court, the claimants were expected to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that death or injury in each case was attributable to exposure. In 1992, 44 percent of the claimants still had to be medically examined.[6]By the end of October 2003, according to the Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department, compensation had been awarded to 554,895 people for injuries received and 15,310 survivors of those killed. The average amount to families of the dead was $2,200.[55]In 2007, 1,029,517 cases were registered and decided. Number of awarded cases were 574,304 and number of rejected cases 455,213. Total compensation awarded was ₹15,465 million (US$220 million).[46]On 24 June 2010, the Union Cabinet of the Government of India approved a ₹12,650 million (US$180 million) aid package which would be funded by Indian taxpayers through the government.[56]Other impactsIn 1985, Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, called for a U.S. government inquiry into the Bhopal disaster, which resulted in U.S. legislation regarding the accidental release of toxic chemicals in the United States.[57]CausesThere are two main lines of argument involving the disaster. The "Corporate Negligence" point of view argues that the disaster was caused by a potent combination of under-maintained and decaying facilities, a weak attitude towards safety, and an undertrained workforce, culminating in worker actions that inadvertently enabled water to penetrate the MIC tanks in the absence of properly working safeguards.[6][39]The "Worker Sabotage" point of view argues that it was not physically possible for the water to enter the tank without concerted human effort, and that extensive testimony and engineering analysis leads to a conclusion that water entered the tank when a rogue individual employee hooked a water hose directly to an empty valve on the side of the tank. This point of view further argues that the Indian government took extensive actions to hide this possibility in order to attach blame to UCC.[58]Theories differ as to how the water entered the tank. At the time, workers were cleaning out a clogged pipe with water about 400 feet from the tank. They claimed that they were not told to isolate the tank with a pipe slip-blind plate. The operators assumed that owing to bad maintenance and leaking valves, it was possible for the water to leak into the tank.[6][59]This water entry route could not be reproduced despite strenuous efforts by motivated parties.[60]UCC claims that a "disgruntled worker" deliberately connecting a hose to a pressure gauge connection was the real cause.[6][58]Early the next morning, a UCIL manager asked the instrument engineer to replace the gauge. UCIL's investigation team found no evidence of the necessary connection; the investigation was totally controlled by the government, denying UCC investigators access to the tank or interviews with the operators.[58][61]Corporate negligenceThis point of view argues that management (and to some extent, local government) underinvested in safety, which allowed for a dangerous working environment to develop. Factors cited include the filling of the MIC tanks beyond recommended levels, poor maintenance after the plant ceased MIC production at the end of 1984, allowing several safety systems to be inoperable due to poor maintenance, and switching off safety systems to save money— including the MIC tank refrigeration system which could have mitigated the disaster severity, and non-existent catastrophe management plans.[6][39]Other factors identified by government inquiries included undersized safety devices and the dependence on manual operations.[6]Specific plant management deficiencies that were identified include the lack of skilled operators, reduction of safety management, insufficient maintenance, and inadequate emergency action plans.[6][14]UnderinvestmentUnderinvestment is cited as contributing to an environment. In attempts to reduce expenses, $1.25 million of cuts were placed upon the plant which affected the factory's employees and their conditions.[16]Kurzman argues that "cuts ... meant less stringent quality control and thus looser safety rules. A pipe leaked? Don't replace it, employees said they were told ... MIC workers needed more training? They could do with less. Promotions were halted, seriously affecting employee morale and driving some of the most skilled ... elsewhere".[62]Workers were forced to use English manuals, even though only a few had a grasp of the language.[59][63]Subsequent research highlights a gradual deterioration of safety practices in regard to the MIC, which had become less relevant to plant operations. By 1984, only six of the original twelve operators were still working with MIC and the number of supervisory personnel had also been halved. No maintenance supervisor was placed on the night shift and instrument readings were taken every two hours, rather than the previous and required one-hour readings.[59][62]Workers made complaints about the cuts through their union but were ignored. One employee was fired after going on a 15-day hunger strike. 70% of the plant's employees were fined before the disaster for refusing to deviate from the proper safety regulations under pressure from the management.[59][62]In addition, some observers, such as those writing in the Trade Environmental Database (TED) Case Studies as part of the Mandala Project from American University, have pointed to "serious communication problems and management gaps between Union Carbide and its Indian operation", characterised by "the parent companies [sic] hands-off approach to its overseas operation" and "cross-cultural barriers".[64]Adequacy of equipment and regulationsThe factory was not well equipped to handle the gas created by the sudden addition of water to the MIC tank. The MIC tank alarms had not been working for four years and there was only one manual back-up system, compared to a four-stage system used in the United States.[6][39][59][65]The flare tower and several vent gas scrubbers had been out of service for five months before the disaster. Only one gas scrubber was operating: it could not treat such a large amount of MIC with sodium hydroxide (caustic soda), which would have brought the concentration down to a safe level.[65]The flare tower could only handle a quarter of the gas that leaked in 1984, and moreover it was out of order at the time of the incident.[6][39][59][66]To reduce energy costs, the refrigeration system was idle. The MIC was kept at 20 degrees Celsius, not the 4.5 degrees advised by the manual.[6][39][59][65]Even the steam boiler, intended to clean the pipes, was non-operational for unknown reasons.[6][39][59][65]Slip-blind plates that would have prevented water from pipes being cleaned from leaking into the MIC tanks, had the valves been faulty, were not installed and their installation had been omitted from the cleaning checklist.[6][39][59]As MIC is water-soluble, deluge guns were in place to contain escaping gases from the stack. The water pressure was too weak for the guns to spray high enough to reach the gas which would have reduced the concentration of escaping gas significantly.[6][39][59][65]In addition to it, carbon steel valves were used at the factory, even though they were known to corrode when exposed to acid.[12]According to the operators, the MIC tank pressure gauge had been malfunctioning for roughly a week. Other tanks were used, rather than repairing the gauge. The build-up in temperature and pressure is believed to have affected the magnitude of the gas release.[6][39][59][65]UCC admitted in their own investigation report that most of the safety systems were not functioning on the night of 3 December 1984.[67]The design of the MIC plant, following government guidelines, was "Indianized" by UCIL engineers to maximise the use of indigenous materials and products. Mumbai-based Humphreys and Glasgow Consultants Pvt. Ltd., were the main consultants, Larsen & Toubro fabricated the MIC storage tanks, and Taylor of India Ltd. provided the instrumentation.[29]In 1998, during civil action suits in India, it emerged that the plant was not prepared for problems. No action plans had been established to cope with incidents of this magnitude. This included not informing local authorities of the quantities or dangers of chemicals used and manufactured at Bhopal.[6][12][39][59]Safety auditsSafety audits were done every year in the US and European UCC plants, but only every two years in other parts of the world.[6][68]Before a "Business Confidential" safety audit by UCC in May 1982, the senior officials of the corporation were well aware of "a total of 61 hazards, 30 of them major and 11 minor in the dangerous phosgene/methyl isocyanate units" in Bhopal.[6][69]In the audit 1982, it was indicated that worker performance was below standards.[6][61]Ten major concerns were listed.[6]UCIL prepared an action plan, but UCC never sent a follow-up team to Bhopal. Many of the items in the 1982 report were temporarily fixed, but by 1984, conditions had again deteriorated.[61]In September 1984, an internal UCC report on the West Virginia plant in the USA revealed a number of defects and malfunctions. It warned that "a runaway reaction could occur in the MIC unit storage tanks, and that the planned response would not be timely or effective enough to prevent catastrophic failure of the tanks". This report was never forwarded to the Bhopal plant, although the main design was the same.[70]Impossibility of the "negligence"According to the "Corporate Negligence" argument, workers had been cleaning out pipes with water nearby. This water was diverted due to a combination of improper maintenance, leaking and clogging, and eventually ended up in the MIC storage tank. Indian scientists also suggested that additional water might have been introduced as a "back-flow" from a defectively designed vent-gas scrubber. None of these theoretical routes of entry were ever successfully demonstrated during tests by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and UCIL engineers.[59][61][68][71]A Union Carbide commissioned analysis conducted by Arthur D. Little claims that the Negligence argument was impossible for several tangible reasons:[58]The pipes being used by the nearby workers were only 1/2 inch in diameter and were physically incapable of producing enough hydraulic pressure to raise water the more than 10 feet that would have been necessary to enable the water to "backflow" into the MIC tank.A key intermediate valve would have had to be open for the Negligence argument to apply. This valve was "tagged" closed, meaning that it had been inspected and found to be closed. While it is possible for open valves to clog over time, the only way a closed valve allows penetration is if there is leakage, and 1985 tests carried out by the government of India found this valve to be non-leaking.In order for water to have reached the MIC tank from the pipe-cleaning area, it would have had to flow through a significant network of pipes ranging from 6 to 8 inches in diameter, before rising ten feet and flowing into the MIC tank. Had this occurred, most of the water that was in those pipes at the time the tank had its critical reaction would have remained in those pipes, as there was no drain for them. Investigation by the Indian government in 1985 revealed that the pipes were bone dry.Employee sabotageNow owned by Dow Chemical Company, Union Carbide maintains a website dedicated to the tragedy and claims that the incident was the result of sabotage, stating that sufficient safety systems were in place and operative to prevent the intrusion of water.[72]The Union Carbide-commissioned Arthur D. Little report concluded that it was likely that a single employee secretly and deliberately introduced a large amount of water into the MIC tank by removing a meter and connecting a water hose directly to the tank through the metering port.[58]UCC claims the plant staff falsified numerous records to distance themselves from the incident and absolve themselves of blame, and that the Indian government impeded its investigation and declined to prosecute the employee responsible, presumably because it would weaken its allegations of negligence by Union Carbide.[73]The evidence in favor of this point of view includes:A key witness (the "tea boy") testified that when he entered the control room at 12:15 am, prior to the disaster, the "atmosphere was tense and quiet".Another key witness (the "instrument supervisor") testified that when he arrived at the scene immediately following the incident, he noticed that the local pressure indicator on the critical Tank 610 was missing, and that he had found a hose lying next to the empty manhead created by the missing pressure indicator, and that the hose had had water running out of it.This testimony was corroborated by other witnesses.Graphological analysis revealed major attempts to alter logfiles and destroy log evidence.Other logfiles show that the control team had attempted to purge 1 ton of material out of Tank 610 immediately prior to the disaster. An attempt was then made to cover up this transfer via log alteration. Water is heavier than MIC, and the transfer line is attached to the bottom of the tank. The Arthur D. Little report concludes from this that the transfer was an effort to transfer water out of Tank 610 that had been discovered there.A third key witness (the "off-duty employee of another unit") 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 had been discovered by the other MIC operators (so the story was recounted) who then tried to open and close valves to prevent the release.A fourth key witness (the "operator from a different unit") stated that after the release, two MIC operators had told him that water had entered the tank through a pressure gauge.The Little report argues that this evidence demonstrates that the following chronology took place:At 10:20pm, the tank was at normal pressure, indicating the absence of water.At 10:45pm, a shift change took place, after which the MIC storage area "would be completely deserted".During this period, 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."Water began to flow, beginning the chemical reaction that caused the disaster.After midnight, control room operators noticed the pressure rising and realized there was a problem with Tank 610. They discovered the water connection, and decided to transfer one ton of the contents out to try and remove the water.The MIC release then occurred.The cover-up activities discovered during the investigation then took place.After over 30 years, in November 2017, S. P. Choudhary, former MIC production manager, claimed in court that the disaster was not an accident but the result of a sabotage that claimed thousands of lives.Chaudry's counsel, Anirban Roy, argued that the theory of design defects was floated by the central government in its endeavour to protect the victims of the tragedy. Everyone else who was part of investigations into the case "just toed the line of the central government.... The government and the CBI suppressed the actual truth and saved the real perpetrators of the crime."[74][75]Roy argued to the district court that disgruntled plant operator M. L. Verma was behind the sabotage because he was unhappy with senior management. The counsel argued that there were discrepancies in the statements given by persons who were operating the plant at that time but the central agency chose not to investigate the case properly because it always wanted to prove that it was a mishap, and not sabotage. He alleged that Verma was unhappy with Chaudhary and Mukund.[76][2]Ongoing contaminationDeteriorating section of the MIC plant, decades after the gas leak.Chemicals abandoned at the plant continue to leak and pollute the groundwater.[55][85][86][87]Whether the chemicals pose a health hazard is disputed.[88]Contamination at the site and surrounding area was not caused by the gas leakage. The area around the plant was used as a dumping ground for hazardous chemicals and by 1982 water wells in the vicinity of the UCIL factory had to be abandoned.[6]UCC states that "after the incident, UCIL began clean-up work at the site under the direction of Indian central and state government authorities", which was continued after 1994 by the successor to UCIL. The successor, Eveready Industries India, Limited (EIIL), ended cleanup on the site in 1998, when it terminated its 99-year lease and turned over control of the site to the state government of Madhya Pradesh.[34][72]UCC's laboratory tests in 1989 revealed that soil and water samples collected from near the factory were toxic to fish. Twenty-one areas inside the plant were reported to be highly polluted. In 1991 the municipal authorities declared that water from over 100 wells was hazardous for health if used for drinking.[6]In 1994 it was reported that 21% of the factory premises were seriously contaminated with chemicals.[45][89][90]Beginning in 1999, studies made by Greenpeace and others from soil, groundwater, well water and vegetables from the residential areas around UCIL and from the UCIL factory area show contamination with a range of toxic heavy metals and chemical compounds. Substances found, according to the reports, are naphthol, naphthalene, Sevin, tarry residues, alpha naphthol, mercury, organochlorines, chromium, copper, nickel, lead, hexachlorethane, hexachlorobutadiene, pesticide HCH (BHC), volatile organic compounds and halo-organics.[89][90][91][92]Many of these contaminants were also found in breast milk of women living near the area.[93]Soil tests were conducted by Greenpeace in 1999. One sample (IT9012) from "sediment collected from drain under former Sevin plant" showed mercury levels to be at "20,000 and 6 million times" higher than expected levels. Organochlorine compounds at elevated levels were also present in groundwater collected from (sample IT9040) a 4.4 meter depth "bore-hole within the former UCIL site". This sample was obtained from a source posted with a warning sign which read "Water unfit for consumption".[94]Chemicals that have been linked to various forms of cancer were also discovered, as well as trichloroethylene, known to impair fetal development, at 50 times above safety limits specified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).[93]In 2002, an inquiry by Fact-Finding Mission on Bhopal found a number of toxins, including mercury, lead, 1,3,5 trichlorobenzene, dichloromethane and chloroform, in nursing women's breast milk.A 2004 BBC Radio 5 broadcast reported the site is contaminated with toxic chemicals including benzene hexachloride and mercury, held in open containers or loose on the ground.[95]A drinking water sample from a well near the site had levels of contamination 500 times higher than the maximum limits recommended by the World Health Organization.[96]In 2009, the Centre for Science and Environment, a Delhi-based pollution monitoring lab, released test results showing pesticide groundwater contamination up to three kilometres from the factory.[97]Also in 2009, the BBC took a water sample from a frequently used hand pump, located just north of the plant. The sample, tested in UK, was found to contain 1,000 times the World Health Organization's recommended maximum amount of carbon tetrachloride, a carcinogenic toxin.[98]In 2010, a British photojournalist who ventured into the abandoned Union Carbide factory to investigate allegations of abandoned, leaking toxins, was hospitalized in Bhopal for a week after he was exposed to the chemicals. Doctors at the Sambhavna Clinic treated him with oxygen, painkillers and anti-inflammatories following a severe respiratory reaction to toxic dust inside the factory.[99][100]In October 2011, the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment published an article and video by two British environmental scientists, showing the current state of the plant, landfill and solar evaporation ponds and calling for renewed international efforts to provide the necessary skills to clean up the site and contaminated groundwater.[101]Popular cultureActivismSince 1984, individual activists have played a role in the aftermath of the tragedy. The best-known is Satinath Sarangi (Sathyu), a metallurgic engineer who arrived at Bhopal the day after the leakage. He founded several activist groups, as well as Sambhavna Trust, the clinic for gas affected patients, where he is the manager.[6]Other activists include Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla, who received the Goldman Prize in 2004, Abdul Jabbar and Rachna Dhingra.[105][106]Local activismProtest in Bhopal in 2010Soon after the accident, representatives from different activist groups arrived. The activists worked on organising the gas victims, which led to violent repression from the police and the government.[6]Numerous actions have been performed: demonstrations, sit-ins, hunger strikes, marches combined with pamphlets, books, and articles. Every anniversary, actions are performed. Often these include marches around Old Bhopal, ending with burning an effigy of Warren Anderson.International activismCooperation with international NGOs including Pesticide Action Network UK and Greenpeace started soon after the tragedy. One of the earliest reports is the Trade Union report from ILO 1985.[61]In 1992, a session of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal on Industrial Hazards and Human Rights took place in Bhopal, and in 1996, the "Charter on Industrial Hazards and Human Rights" was adopted.In 1994, the International Medical Commission on Bhopal (IMCB) met in Bhopal. Their work contributed to long term health effects being officially recognised.Important international actions have been the tour to Europe and United States in 2003,[107]the marches to Delhi in 2006 and 2008, all including hunger strikes, and the Bhopal Europe Bus Tour in 2009.Activist organisationsBhopal People's Health and Documentation ClinicAt least 14 different NGOs were immediately engaged.[6]The first disaster reports were published by activist organisations, Eklavya and the Delhi Science Forum.Around ten local organisations, engaged on long term, have been identified. Two of the most active organisations are the women's organisations—Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila-Stationery Karmachari Sangh and Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangthan.[6]More than 15 national organisations have been engaged along with a number of international organisations.[6]Some of the organisations are:International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB), coordinates international activities.Bhopal Medical Appeal, collects funds for the Sambhavna Trust.Sambhavna Trust or Bhopal People's Health and Documentation Clinic. Provides medical care for gas affected patients and those living in water-contaminated area.Chingari Trust, provides medical care for children being born in Bhopal with malformations and brain damages.Students for Bhopal, based in USA.International Medical Commission on Bhopal, provided medical information 1994–2000.Settlement fund hoaxOn 3 December 2004, the twentieth anniversary of the disaster, a man falsely claiming to be a Dow representative named Jude Finisterra was interviewed on BBC World News. He claimed that the company had agreed to clean up the site and compensate those harmed in the incident, by liquidating Union Carbide for US$12 billion.[108][109]Dow quickly issued a statement saying that they had no employee by that name—that he was an impostor, not affiliated with Dow, and that his claims were a hoax. The BBC later broadcast a correction and an apology.[110]Jude Finisterra was actually Andy Bichlbaum, a member of the activist prankster group The Yes Men. In 2002, The Yes Men issued a fake press release explaining why Dow refused to take responsibility for the disaster and started up a website, at "Dow Ethics: My Blog about the Stock Market", designed to look like the real Dow website, but containing hoax information.[111]Monitoring of activistsThe release of an email cache related to intelligence research organisation Stratfor was leaked by WikiLeaks on 27 February 2012.[112]It revealed that Dow Chemical had engaged Stratfor to spy on the public and personal lives of activists involved in the Bhopal disaster, including the Yes Men. E-mails to Dow representatives from hired security analysts list the YouTube videos liked, Twitter and Facebook posts made and the public appearances of these activists.[113]Journalists, film-makers and authors who were investigating Bhopal and covering the issue of ongoing contamination, such as Jack Laurenson and Max Carlson, were also placed under surveillance.[114][115]Stratfor released a statement condemning the revelation by Wikileaks while neither confirming nor denying the accuracy of the reports, and would only state that it had acted within the bounds of the law. Dow Chemical also refrained to comment on the matter.[116]Ingrid Eckerman, a member of the International Medical Commission on Bhopal, has been denied a visa to visit India.[117](source[Wikipedia])All this happened and congress tried to cover up.Rajeev Gandhi was directly involved in this case.Corrupted Congress took money from Union Carbide.Thanks for reading

Why Do Our Customer Attach Us

pdf editing is very ease to use, fonts handling is good by software

Justin Miller