The Bhopal Disaster, 25 Years Later
In the night of December 3, 1984 forty tons of methyl isocyanate, a highly toxic chemical used to produce pesticides, leaked from a chemical plant belonging to Union Carbide (now a subsidiary of Dow Chemical) in Bhopal, India, that by some estimates killed 8,000 people within three days and affected over 500,000 residents of the area. Over 15,000 more people died of the consequences of gas exposure in the years that followed. Today, with the plant’s toxic waste site still not cleaned up, people in Bhopal are drinking very toxic water. Recently published reports from accredited laboratories in Switzerland and the UK found 15 highly toxic chemicals in the groundwater of Bhopal whose levels greatly exceed the safe levels recommended by the WHO, in some cases over a thousandfold. Most of these chemicals could be neurotoxic and damage the brain and other internal organs. The incidence of children born with congenital birth defects linked to their parents’ exposure to the gas is ten times higher in Bhopal than in other localities with matching socioeconomic factors.
Letters to the Editor
Since this is the last week of classes, you undoubtedly have many things to do today. Nevertheless, please take a few minutes to go to your polling location (Kresge Auditorium for most students who live on campus) and vote in the special election primary to choose the next US senator to represent the state of Massachusetts.
OpenCourseWare and the Future of Education
As we are all aware, MIT has and will continue to make relatively large cuts to its budget in light of the recent financial meltdown. The administration established the Institute-Wide Planning Task Force to evaluate ways to make these cuts with minimal impact to the MIT community. One proposal is to cut funding to OpenCourseWare (OCW) or continue funding only until the grant funding that has paid for 72 percent of OCW since its creation runs out. For those not familiar with OCW, it is a brilliant piece of intellectual philanthropy that MIT opened to the public in September of 2002. Essentially, anyone in the world can access the same knowledge and information that MIT students are inundated with by classes. Not just a few classes here and there in the most common disciplines — as of May 2006 there were 1400 courses online. This is an unbelievable resource that has been utilized by about 60 million people, both on and off the campus. Twenty years ago, the thought that one could log onto a computer and access nearly the entire curriculum at MIT would be unthinkable. But now it can be done.
Corrections
An article on November 24 about MIT’s Rhodes Scholarship winners incorrectly said Ugwechi Amadi ’10, one of the winners, is majoring in Brain and Cognitive Sciences with a minor in literature. She is actually double-majoring in Brain and Cognitive Sciences and literature.
Five Years In: <br />The Hockfield Administration
During last week’s quarterly meeting of the Corporation, President Susan Hockfield was given a round of applause in special recognition of her first five years of service leading the MIT community. Now, on the cusp of 2010, we as a community can also look back to see where the President has succeeded and where she may need to change her approach in the future.
Things That Are Political and Paradoxical
Ever since Obama visited MIT a few weeks ago, I’ve been feeling more politically charged. Was it because the President of the United States came to MIT? No. Was it because he delivered an address about MIT’s devotion to clean energy? No. Was it because we had an auditorium full of political giants? No. Because MIT scrambled in less than a week to prepare the campus for a presidential visit? Nope. It wasn’t that either. So what was it?
Making Orientation Better … for Less!
The Orientation planning committee will soon be evaluating options for making Orientation cheaper as MIT contends with an Institute-wide budget crunch. Some measures have been suggested that have potential to significantly detract from the freshman Orientation experience — including cutting the length of Orientation in half. We instead propose a couple of simple tweaks to the existing schedule that will both save the Institute money and improve the Orientation experience for students and the campus community.
UA Update
Senate met on Monday, November 30 for their second special budgetary session during UAS 41. The Senate discussed the budget for the Spring 2010 semester, which is available at <i>http://ua.mit.edu/finances/</i>. On Monday, December 7, Senate will be voting on the proposed budget. Pending legislation will also be discussed and voted upon at this meeting, which is the last Senate meeting of the fall semester.
Going Beyond Traditional Political Restraints
Criticism of the capitalist state does not equal support for totalitarian socialism.
‘Hackers’ Reveal Corrupt Science At Climate Research Unit
Over the past few weeks anonymous “hackers” entered the computer systems of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in the UK. This intrusion has been confirmed by the university and at least some of the data leaked to Wikileaks.org have been confirmed as authentic by officials at the CRU. Among the data were hundreds of e-mails and source code files which describe a shameful corruption of the scientific process.
Corrections
An article Tuesday about MIT’s Rhodes Scholarship winners incorrectly claimed that MIT broke its record for the most Rhodes Scholars in a given year. MIT did not break that record this year, but this year’s three winners did break the record for the most MIT Rhodes Scholars from the U.S. in a year.
An Idea for Afghanistan: The Ownership Society Principle
How do you turn a rebellious liberal into a risk-averse conservative?
Letters to the Editor
As I am sure you are aware, the University of East Anglia’s computer system was hacked and many e-mails by prominent weather researchers have been published. Some of these are extremely disturbing. They appear to document collusion among leaders in the field to alter and then withhold raw data and to stonewall Freedom of Information requests regarding analytical methods. Anecdotal reports of moving weather stations to lower altitudes in California and Japan are also emerging. Most disturbing, these e-mails appear to document a concerted effort to undermine the peer review process.
Dining Reform Set to Repeat History
Dining at MIT has a long and contentious history of student distaste and quarrels with administrators. In lieu of these past protests, what’s surprising now is just how little discussion is occurring over current proposals.
Copenhagen Needs Obama
On December 7, world leaders will descend on Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference to determine the future of planet Earth. Or at least they should. So far only 65 national leaders have actually committed to attending the talks. Notable absentees include president Hu Jintao of China and Barack Obama. These politicians, by waiting until the last moment to commit to attending the conference, hope to be portrayed in the media as the saviors of the planet, as the deal clinchers for a sustainable future. Unfortunately, they will be disappointed. Not only will the world not be saved in Copenhagen, because there will not be a treaty to sign, but also there is only one man who can truly salvage the process and play the hero: Barack Obama.
Questioning Capitalism
Why does anyone still question capitalism as the basic engine for economic growth? From what used to be the Soviet Union to China, capitalism has gained recognition as the best way to achieve broad-based economic success. However, individuals like Alexi Goranov, who wrote an article for the November 20 issue of <i>The Tech</i> (“Capitalism and Functioning Democracy Are At Odds”), believe that capitalism is inherently flawed. This is ignorance.
Corrections
An opinion piece last Friday by Alexi Goranov titled “Capitalism and Functioning Democracy Are at Odds” incorrectly stated “A study by IMS Health estimated that the new healthcare bill will bring the drug industry an increase in sales by $137 billion over the next four years.” In a letter to <i>The Tech</i>, Gary J. Gatyas, Jr., a communications director at IMS Health, wrote that the $137 billion increase from the April to the October 2009 forecasts is not all attributable to current healthcare reforms. Goranov cited a November 12, 2009 piece from “Democracy Now!” that, according to IMS Health, misinterpreted the organization’s report. According to Gatyas, “The direct impact of current U.S. healthcare reform measures embedded in the IMS forecast is less than one percent of projected total industry sales through 2013.”
Electronic Communication And Life Histories
Do you think that social networking tools like Facebook and MySpace are eliminating the need for real social interaction? I was doing an Internet survey the other day that was about interactions with close friends — something along the lines of, “list your top five friends, and then list the last way you communicated with them.” For me, few of my closest friends live in the same city as me, so my answers largely involved some form of electronic communication — e-mail, instant messaging, text messaging and others.
Capitalism and Functioning Democracy Are at Odds
The fundamental debate is whether the right to increases in capital and property supersedes the right to equality, i.e. the right to equal access to labor and life. If the two rights are considered absolute they cannot coexist; one destroys the other (per “What is Property” by French anarchist Joseph-Pierre Proudhon).
Corrections
The solution for the sudoku in Tuesday’s issue was incorrect. The correct solution is printed here, to the right.