title: Anheuser-Busch

text: For employees, AB InBev ended perquisites such as executive assistants for senior management, company contributions to the salaried employee pension plan, and company-provided life insurance to retirees; it also reduced the number of company-provided cell phones, taking back 1200 Blackberries; and ended tuition reimbursement, and severance packages. Perks like free tickets to St. Louis Cardinals baseball games and for Busch Gardens were taken away from employees. Anheuser-Busch stopped providing free beer to its employees and visitors to its theme parks. These internal changes accompanied changes in its advertising. These cost-cutting measures rapidly reduced AB InBev's debt from $56.6 billion in 2008 to $30.1 billion at the end of 2012. When the restructuring was complete, only three senior-level Anheuser-Busch managers remained.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: InBev auctioned off several large assets in an effort to pay off debt to the banks that financed the merger. It sold Anheuser's 27% stake in China's Tsingtao, sold a few beverage can and lid-making plants to Ball Corporation, and sold its own Korean beer business for $1.8 billion to private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis and Roberts & Co. It put the 10 theme parks in Anheuser's Busch Entertainment Unit, which included its three SeaWorld locations, up for sale.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: Under InBev, Anheuser-Busch also lengthened accounts payable terms, and introduced zero-based budgeting. These changes caused concern from its suppliers when Anheuser-Busch announced it would take 120 days to pay its bills rather than 30 days, taking time to use that money for other purposes. The new payment policy often results in longer periods than 120 days, since the 120 days starts from the end of the month in which the invoice is 'approved' internally, which can be many days/months after an invoice is submitted.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: InBev signed a 10-year lease on 31,500 square feet of office space on Park Avenue in New York, which led to speculation that they would move Anheuser-Busch InBev North American headquarters from St Louis.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: In February 2013, a widely publicized lawsuit accused AB InBev "watering down" products including Budweiser and Michelob. Such beers are intentionally brewed over-strength and then "watered down" to the intended level, creating a product of equal or greater quality. The lawsuit was dismissed.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: Of Anheuser's top executives, only three remained in their jobs following the acquisition: Dave Peacock as president of the merged company's US division; Gary Rutledge as general counsel for the company's North American business; and Bob Golden, Anheuser's former acquisitions head, as global head of the merged company's mergers and acquisitions effort.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: Anheuser-Busch Companies operates as one of several subsidiaries in the North America zone unit of Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (AB InBev) and it produces and distributes hundreds of products from the AB InBev portfolio.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: On October 10, 2016, a $100 billion merger between Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller closed. The new company is trading as NewbelcoSABMiller.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: Michel Doukeris is the current President and CEO, North America at Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, the parent company of the U.S. operation.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: After Anheuser-Busch's acquisition by InBev, August A. Busch IV was replaced as the subsidiary president by Dave Peacock.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: The St. Louis brewery, which opened in 1852, is a National Historic Landmark District, and includes three buildings listed as National Historic Landmarks. Public tours of the brewery are offered. The tour takes visitors through the complex where they can see beer being made and packaged in a working part of the brewery. The company keeps a rotation of its famous Budweiser Clydesdales at its headquarters, and visitors to the brewery can observe the clydesdales in their exercise field and see their places in the carriage house.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: The brewery was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966. The landmarked area includes 189 structures spread over , including many red brick Romanesque ones "with square crenelated towers and elaborate details." The Brew House, built in 1891–1892, is particularly notable for its "multi-storied hop chandeliers, intricate iron-work, and utilization of natural light".


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: Aside from supply operations like brewing and packaging, Anheuser-Busch Companies includes Anheuser-Busch Wholesale Operations Divisions (WOD), Anheuser-Busch Agricultural Operations, Anheuser-Busch Recycling Corporation, Eagle Packaging, and Busch Properties, which manages subsidiary-owned property. Anheuser Busch owns and operates aluminum can plants (Metal Container Corporation).


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: MCC supplies Anheuser Busch breweries and Pepsi Beverages Group fillers across the US. Suppliers to Anheuser-Busch Companies include Owens-Illinois, which provides glass bottles to several Anheuser-Busch breweries. Anheuser-Busch also owns glass production facilities, such as the former Longhorn Glass, which provides glass for the Houston brewery. Anheuser-Busch Companies delivers its products to retailers through a network of more than 500 independent wholesalers and 13 wholly owned distributors.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: On February 20, 1953, Anheuser-Busch purchased the St. Louis Cardinals major league baseball club and owned them until March 21, 1996, when the club was sold to a group of private investors.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: In 1966, Busch Memorial Stadium was paid for and built by the brewery and opened for business; Anheuser-Busch later purchased the stadium in 1981 for $53 million and removed the "Memorial" in its name. The stadium was demolished in late 2005 and replaced by a new ballpark in 2006. Anheuser-Busch signed an agreement to retain the "Busch Stadium" name on the new building through 2025.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: Up until 2009, Anheuser-Busch was also one of the largest theme park owners/operators in the United States, with ten parks throughout the country through its entertainment division, Busch Entertainment Corporation, including its three SeaWorld locations. The company is now known as SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: Anheuser-Busch Companies is responsible for the production, importation and distribution of several AB InBev products, including three company-designated global brands, Budweiser, Stella Artois, and Beck's. Other multi-country brands distributed or produced by Anheuser-Busch Companies include Leffe and Hoegaarden, while local brands produced by the company include Bass Pale Ale, Bud Light, Busch Beer, Landshark Lager, Michelob, Michelob Ultra, Natural Light, and Shock Top. The company also produces nonalcoholic beverages, malt liquors (such as King Cobra and Hurricane), and flavored malt beverages (e.g. the Bacardi Silver family and Tequiza).


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: On December 22, 2015, it was announced that Anheuser-Busch would purchase Breckenridge Brewery for an undisclosed sum.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: Prior to its acquisition by InBev, the company was known in the United States for its advertising presence, including a sports marketing division which created advertising material for the Super Bowl and many other sporting events. Budweiser has sponsored horse racing events and motor sports including NASCAR, the "Miss Budweiser" racing hydroplane, and the "Budweiser King" championship top fuel dragster of Kenny Bernstein.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: Since the acquisition by AB InBev, the company has significantly cut back its advertising, predicated on the belief that "changing demographics and media habits no longer require spending as much on mainstream sports events".


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: In 2007, the company introduced a flavored 12% abv malt liquor under the name "Spykes". It was sold in colorful, 2-ounce bottles. Available flavors included mango, lime, melon and chocolate. It was withdrawn in the same year after criticism from alcohol industry watchdog groups that it was being marketed to underage customers, and the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau found that the labeling of Spykes was illegal.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: In 2002, the Political Economy Research Institute ranked Anheuser–Busch 40th among the "Toxic 100", a list of U.S. corporations most responsible for air pollution. The study found that Anheuser–Busch released 1,002,786 kg (2,213,657 lbs) of toxic pollutants annually into the air. This is mainly because large amounts of CO are released during the process of fermentation.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: Anheuser-Busch has received numerous awards for its efforts to reduce its impact on the environment. In 1995 Anheuser-Busch's Baldwinsville brewery won an award for pollution prevention from the New York Governor for its use of a "comprehensive, energy-producing pollution-prevention system – bioenergy recovery – to treat wastewater from the brewing process." The brewery also reduced solid waste by nearly 70 percent from 1990 to 1994. In addition, the Baldwinsville brewery found markets for previous "waste" materials used in the fermentation of Anheuser-Busch beers. The Anheuser-Busch Recycling Corp. recycled more than 27 billion cans in 2006, a number far greater than what was used in its own packaging. Similarly, Anheuser-Busch has set short-term goals to reduce energy consumption 5% and increasing use of renewable fuel from 8 to 15% by 2010. Along with these goals, Anheuser-Busch has succeeded in cutting down its water use by 3% since 2002. Its parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev has recently announced a commitment to secure 100% of the company's purchased electricity from renewable sources by 2025.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: The brewery also operates an environmental outreach program to encourage recycling, energy conservation, and habitat preservation, as well as to prevent littering and water pollution. For past 18 years Anheuser-Busch employees have participated in "Green Week", which focuses on environmental conservation education for employees and their families.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: Anheuser-Busch states they do not use animal-derived products, artificial ingredients, additives or preservatives at any stage of the brewing process or as part of the packaging in any of their range, with the exception of three Michelob products and two Bud Light products, which contain honey and shellfish respectively, and are marketed as such. All other Anheuser-Busch beers are brewed using water, yeast, barley malt, hops, and additional cereal grains. Anheuser-Busch eliminates the need for isinglass finings by settling and removing particles before fermentation. The beechwood aging process also helps to attract and remove yeast from the brew before the lagering process has ended. This only applies to the beers the company brews itself.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: Anheuser-Busch became a pioneer for electricity-powered heavy trucks. It ordered hundreds of trucks from Nikola Motor, an Arizona company specialized in the development of hydrogen-fueled engines.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: In 2003, after numerous deaths in football stadiums, Brazil passed a law outlawing alcohol sales in stadiums. FIFA demanded that Brazil allow alcohol sales at the 2014 FIFA World Cup because Budweiser, a major World Cup sponsor is the "Official Beer of the FIFA World Cup", a role it has played since 1986.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: In response, Brazil passed a law paving the way for alcohol sales in the World Cup, nicknamed the "Budweiser Bill".


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: In April 2015, Anheuser-Busch, in an effort to target new, younger consumers to buy its products, the company printed a slogan on Bud Light bottles that said "The perfect beer for removing 'no' from your vocabulary for the night. #UpForWhatever." The label triggered a backlash, and the company was immediately criticized by people who charged that it could be interpreted as promoting rape. Bud Light’s vice president Alexander Lambrecht addressed the situation via Twitter, first saying that the slogans were meant to promote brand engagement in a “positive and lighthearted way”, but that the company had “missed the mark” with their "up for whatever" slogan. He ended his message by saying that Bud Light would “never condone disrespectful or irresponsible behavior”. His message was followed by a Twitter response from Lisa Weser; the former head of communications and marketing for Anheuser-Busch InBev, who also responded to the situation via Twitter. Her response repeated Alexander Lambrecht’s concluding message.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) issued a $150,000 violation to Anheuser-Busch in May 2016. Investigators determined that Anheuser-Busch entered into an illegal agreement of exclusivity with two concert venues in Seattle – the Showbox and the Showbox SoDo.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: In early February 2017, Anheuser-Busch's "Budweiser – Born the Hard Way" Super Bowl commercial was released online, prompting conservative political rebuke over its depiction of the immigration of founder Adolphus Busch from Germany to St. Louis. Although the ad had been conceived eight months before its release, some perceived the ad to be a political statement in opposition to President Donald Trump. A week before the ad's release, public controversy erupted over an executive order prohibiting entry of immigrants, refugees, and re-entry of permanent residents from seven countries into the United States. The script for the advertisement was finalized after the November elections, when Budweiser's internal marketing team settled on the twelfth revision of the script. Shooting for the commercial then took place in January. The ad controversy followed after controversy in May 2016 when then Presidential candidate Donald Trump was perceived by some to be hijacking Budweiser's 'America' branding campaign for his own political purposes.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: On March 21, 2019, Anheuser-Busch was sued for false advertising by rival MillerCoors over a Bud Light commercial that aired during Super Bowl LIII. The commercial claimed MillerCoors' Miller Lite and Coors Light products contain corn syrup, but the lawsuit argues that corn syrup is only used during the brewing process as a fermentation aid and neither beer contains corn syrup. The suit alleges that Anheuser-Busch is using "false and misleading statements" to confuse health-conscious consumers into thinking the beers contain high-fructose corn syrup, which has been linked with obesity. An Anheuser-Busch spokesperson called the lawsuit "baseless" and said it wouldn't deter Bud Light from "providing consumers with the transparency they demand." MillerCoors is seeking an injunction to prevent Bud Light from continuing the ad campaign, as well as a trial by jury and legal fees.


title: Anheuser-Busch

text: Adolphus Busch joined Washington University's Board of Directors in 1895, back when the school was still located on its old downtown St. Louis campus. Adolphus would continue to serve on the board until his death in 1913, at which point his son, August Busch Sr. took over his seat. Though Adolphus Busch III and Gussie Busch never sat on the board, the ties between their company and the school were still strong. August Busch III, CEO of Anheuser-Busch from 1975 to 2002, would become a trustee of the university, a position he holds to this day. The Anheuser-Busch Foundation donation that gave its name to Anheuser-Busch Hall was made in honor of Fred L. Kuhlmann, an executive officer of both the company and the St. Louis Cardinals under August Busch III. Kuhlmann, who held these positions for most of the 1980s and early 1990s, graduated from Wash. U.'s undergraduate and law programs. Though the Busch family no longer owns Anheuser-Busch, the connection between the company and the university is ongoing. Jack H. Purnell, former CEO of Anheuser-Busch, where he worked for 36 years, is an executive in residence of the Olin Business School.


The historical trends in voter turnout in the United States presidential elections have been determined by the gradual expansion of voting rights from the initial restriction to white male property owners aged 21 or older in the early years of the country's independence to all citizens aged 18 or older in the mid-20th century. Voter turnout in United States presidential elections has historically been higher than the turnout for midterm elections.


title: Voter turnout in United States presidential elections

text: Approximately 240 million people were eligible to vote in the 2020 presidential election and roughly 66.1% of them submitted ballots, totaling about 158 million. Biden received about 81 million votes, Trump about 74 million votes, and other candidates (including Jo Jorgensen and Howie Hawkins) a combined approximately 3 million votes.


text: The gradual expansion of the right to vote from only property-owning men to including all white men over 21 was an important movement in the period from 1800 to 1830. Older states with property restrictions dropped them, namely all but Rhode Island, Virginia and North Carolina by the mid-1820s. No new states had property qualifications, although three had adopted tax-paying qualificationsOhio, Louisiana and Mississippi, of which only in Louisiana were these significant and long-lasting. The process was peaceful and widely supported, except in Rhode Island. In Rhode Island, the Dorr Rebellion of the 1840s demonstrated that the demand for equal suffrage was broad and strong, although the subsequent reform included a significant property requirement for any resident born outside of the United States. However, free black men lost voting rights in several states during this period.


text: The fact that a man was now legally allowed to vote did not necessarily mean he routinely voted. He had to be pulled to the polls, which became the most important role of the local parties. These parties systematically sought out potential voters and brought them to the polls. Voter turnout soared during the 1830s, reaching about 80% of the adult male population in the 1840 presidential election. Tax-paying qualifications remained in only five states by 1860Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware and North Carolina.


text: Another innovative strategy for increasing voter participation and input followed. Prior to the presidential election of 1832, the Anti-Masonic Party conducted the nation's first presidential nominating convention. Held in Baltimore, Maryland, September 26–28, 1831, it transformed the process by which political parties select their presidential and vice-presidential candidates.


text: The passage of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1870 gave African American men the right to vote. While this historic expansion of rights resulted in significant increases in the eligible voting population and may have contributed to the increases in the proportion of votes cast for president as a percentage of the total population during the 1870s, there does not seem to have been a significant long-term increase in the percentage of eligible voters who turn out for the poll. The disenfranchisement of most African Americans and many poor whites in the South during the years 1890–1910 likely contributed to the decline in overall voter turnout percentages during those years visible in the chart below.


text: There was no systematic collection of voter turnout data by gender at a national level before 1964, but smaller local studies indicate a low turnout among female voters in the years following women's suffrage in the United States. For example, a 1924 study of voter turnout in Chicago found that "female Chicagoans were far less likely to have visited the polls on Election Day than were men in both the 1920 presidential election (46% vs. 75%) and the 1923 mayoral contest (35% vs. 63%)." The study compared reasons given by male and female non-voters and found that female non-voters were more likely to cite general indifference to politics and ignorance or timidity regarding elections than male non-voters, and that female voter were less likely to cite fear of loss of business or wages. Most significantly, however, 11% of female non-voters in the survey cited a "Disbelief in woman's voting" as the reason they did not vote.


text: The graph of voter turnout percentages shows a dramatic decline in turnout over the first two decades of the twentieth century, ending in 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution granted women the right to vote across the United States. But in the preceding decades, several states had passed laws supporting women's suffrage. Women were granted the right to vote in Wyoming in 1869, before the territory had become a full state in the union. In 1889, when the Wyoming constitution was drafted in preparation for statehood, it included women's suffrage. Thus Wyoming was also the first full state to grant women the right to vote. In 1893, Colorado was the first state to amend an existing constitution in order to grant women the right to vote, and several other states followed, including Utah and Idaho in 1896, Washington State in 1910, California in 1911, Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona in 1912, Alaska and Illinois in 1913, Montana and Nevada in 1914, New York in 1917; Michigan, South Dakota, and Oklahoma in 1918. Each of these suffrage laws expanded the body of eligible voters, and because women were less likely to vote than men, each of these expansions created a decline in voter turnout rates, culminating with the extremely low turnouts in the 1920 and 1924 elections after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.


text: Age, income, and educational attainment are significant factors affecting voter turnout. Educational attainment is perhaps the best predictor of voter turnout, and in the 2008 election, those holding advanced degrees were three times more likely to vote than those with less than high school education. Income correlated well with the likelihood of voting as well. The income correlation may be because of a correlation between income and educational attainment, rather than a direct effect of income.


text: Some argue that "age is an important factor in understanding voting blocs and differences" on various issues. Others argue that young people are typically "plagued" by political apathy and thus do not have strong political opinions. As strong political opinions may be considered one of the reasons behind voting, political apathy among young people is arguably a predictor for low voter turnout. One study found that potential young voters are more willing to commit to voting when they see pictures of younger candidates running for elections/office or voting for other candidates, surmising that young Americans are "voting at higher and similar rates to other Americans when there is a candidate under the age of 35 years running". As such, since most candidates running for office are pervasively over the age of 35 years, youth may not be actively voting in these elections because of a lack of representation or visibility in the political process.


text: Recent decades have seen increasing concern over the fact that youth voter turnout is consistently lower than turnout among older generations. Several programs to increase the rates of voting among young peoplesuch as MTV's "Rock the Vote" (founded in 1990) and the "Vote or Die" initiative (starting in 2004)may have marginally increased turnouts of those between the ages of 18 and 25 to vote. However, the "Stanford Social Innovation Review" found no evidence of a decline in youth voter turnout. In fact, they argue that "Millennials are turning out at similar rates to the previous two generations when they face their first elections."


text: A study by Burman investigated the relationship between formal education levels and voter turnout. This study demonstrated the effect of rising enrollment in college education circa 1980s, which resulted in an increase in voter turnout. However, "this was not true for political knowledge"; a rise in education levels did not have any impact in identifying those with political knowledge (a signifier of civic engagement) until the 1980s election, when college education became a distinguishing factor in identifying civic participation. This article poses a multifaceted perspective on the effect of education levels on voter turnout. Based on this article, one may surmise that education has become a more powerful predictor of civic participation, discriminating more between voters and non-voters. However, this was not true for political knowledge; education levels were not a signifier of political knowledge. Gallego (2010) also contends that voter turnout tends to be higher in localities where voting mechanisms have been established and are easy to operate – i.e. voter turnout and participation tends to be high in instances where registration has been initiated by the state and the number of electoral parties is small.


text: One may contend that ease of accessand not education levelmay be an indicator of voting behavior. Presumably larger, more urban cities will have greater budgets/resources/infrastructure dedicated to elections, which is why youth may have higher turnout rates in those cities versus more rural areas. Though youth in larger (that is, urban) cities tend to be more educated than those in rural areas (Marcus & Krupnick, 2017), perhaps there is an external variable (i.e. election infrastructure) at play. Smith and Tolbert's (2005) research reiterates that the presence of ballot initiatives and portals within a state have a positive effect on voter turnout. Another correlated finding in his study (Snyder, 2011) was that education is less important as a predictor of voter turnout in states than tend to spend more on education. Moreover, Snyder's (2011) research suggests that students are more likely to vote than non-students. It may be surmised that an increase of state investment in electoral infrastructure facilitates and education policy and programs results in increase voter turnout among youth.


text: Harder and Krosnick (2008) contend that some of the reasons for this may be due to "differences in motivation or ability (sometimes both)" (Harder and Krosnick, 2008), or that less wealthy people have less energy, time, or resources to allot towards voting. Another potential reason may be that wealthier people believe that they have more at stake if they don't vote than those with less resources or income.


text: Maslow's hierarchy of needs might also help explain this hypothesis from a psychological perspective. If those with low income are struggling to meet the basic survival needs of food, water, safety, etc., they will not be motivated enough to reach the final stages of "Esteem" or "Self-actualization" needs (Maslow, 1943) – which consist of the desire for dignity, respect, prestige and realizing personal potential, respectively.


text: Since 1980, the voting gender gap has completely reversed, with a higher proportion of women voting than men in each of the last nine presidential elections. The Center for American Women and Politics summarizes how this trend can be measured differently both in terms of proportion of voters to non-voters, and in terms of the bulk number of votes cast.


text: "In every presidential election since 1980, the "proportion" of eligible female adults who voted has exceeded the "proportion" of eligible male adults who voted [...]. In all presidential elections prior to 1980, the voter turnout rate for women was lower than the rate for men. The "number" of female voters has exceeded the "number" of male voters in every presidential election since 1969..." This gender gap has been a determining factor in several recent presidential elections, as women have been consistently about 15% more likely to support the candidate of the Democratic Party than the Republican candidate in each election since 1996.


text: Race and ethnicity has had an effect on voter turnout in recent years, with data from recent elections such as 2008 showing much lower turnout among people identifying as Hispanic or Asian ethnicity than other voters (see chart to the right). One factor impacting voter turnout of African Americans is that, as of the 2000 election, 13% of African American males are reportedly ineligible to vote nationwide because of a prior felony conviction; in certain states – Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi – disenfranchisement rates for African American males in the 2000 election were around 30%.


text: Another factor influencing statistics on voter turnout is the percentage of the country's voting-age population who are ineligible to vote due to non-citizen status or prior felony convictions. In a 2001 article in the "American Political Science Review", Michael P. McDonald and Samuel Popkin argued, that at least in the United States, voter turnout since 1972 has not actually declined when calculated for those eligible to vote, what they term the voting-eligible population. In 1972, noncitizens and ineligible felons (depending on state law) constituted about 2% of the voting-age population. By 2004, ineligible voters constituted nearly 10%. Ineligible voters are not evenly distributed across the country, roughly 15% of California's voting-age population is ineligible to vote – which confounds comparisons of states.


text: The following table shows the available data on turnout for the voting-age population (VAP, all residents of voting age, including those not allowed to vote) and voting-eligible population (VEP, VAP minus non-citizens, felons [in some states], and mentally incapacitated citizens) since 1936.


text: Note: The Bipartisan Policy Center has stated that turnout for 2012 was 57.5 percent of the voting-age population (VAP), which they claim was a decline from 2008. They estimate that as a percent of eligible voters, turnout was: 2000, 54.2%; in 2004 60.4%; 2008 62.3%; and 2012 57.5%.


text: The BPC 2012 vote count is low because their document was written just after the 2012 election, before final counts were in. Their voting-eligible population (VEP) does not include adjustments for felons (see p.13). The United States Elections Project, by Michael McDonald calculates VEP including citizenship and adjustments for felons. The site's data on turnout as percentage of eligible voters (VEP), is slightly higher and similar to BPC: 2000 55.3%, 2004 60.7%, 2008 62.2%, 2012 58.6%. McDonald's voter turnout data for 2016 is 60.1% and 50% for 2018.


text: Later analysis by the University of California, Santa Barbara's American Presidency Project found that there were 235,248,000 people of voting age in the United States in the 2012 election, resulting in 2012 voting age population (VAP) turnout of 54.9%. The total increase in VAP between 2008 and 2012 (5,300,000) was the smallest increase since 1964, bucking the modern average of 8,000,000–13,000,000 per cycle.


title: Minamata disease

text: Minamata disease is a neurological disease caused by severe mercury poisoning. Signs and symptoms include ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet, general muscle weakness, loss of peripheral vision, and damage to hearing and speech. In extreme cases, insanity, paralysis, coma, and death follow within weeks of the onset of symptoms. A congenital form of the disease can also affect fetuses in the womb and may cause cerebral palsy.


title: Minamata disease

text: Minamata disease was first discovered in the city of Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, in 1956, hence its name. It was caused by the release of methylmercury in the industrial wastewater from a chemical factory owned by the Chisso Corporation, which continued from 1932 to 1968. It has also been suggested that some of the mercury sulfate in the wastewater was also metabolized to methylmercury by bacteria in the sediment. This highly toxic chemical bioaccumulated and biomagnified in shellfish and fish in Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea, which, when eaten by the local population, resulted in mercury poisoning. While cat, dog, pig, and human deaths continued for 36 years, Chisso and the Kumamoto prefectural government did little to prevent the epidemic. The animal effects were severe enough in cats that they came to be named as having "dancing cat fever".


title: Minamata disease

text: As of March 2001, 2,265 victims had been officially recognized as having Minamata disease and over 10,000 had received financial compensation from Chisso. By 2004, Chisso had paid US$86 million in compensation, and in the same year was ordered to clean up its contamination. On March 29, 2010, a settlement was reached to compensate as-yet uncertified victims.


title: Minamata disease

text: A second outbreak of Minamata disease occurred in Niigata Prefecture in 1965. The original Minamata disease and Niigata Minamata disease are considered two of the Four Big Pollution Diseases of Japan.


title: Minamata disease

text: In 1908, the Chisso Corporation first opened a chemical factory in Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture, located on the west coast of the southern island of Kyūshū. Initially producing fertilisers, the factory followed the nationwide expansion of Japan's chemical industry, branching out into production of acetylene, acetaldehyde, acetic acid, vinyl chloride, and octanol, among others. The Minamata factory became the most advanced in all of Japan, both before and after World War II. The waste products resulting from the manufacture of these chemicals were released into Minamata Bay through the factory wastewater. These pollutants had an environmental impact. Fisheries were damaged in terms of reduced catches, and in response Chisso reached two separate compensation agreements with the fishery cooperative in 1926 and 1943.


title: Minamata disease

text: The rapid expansion of the Chisso factory spurred on the local economy, and as the company prospered so did Minamata. This fact, combined with the lack of other industry, meant that Chisso had great influence in the city. At one point, over half of the tax revenue of Minamata City authority came from Chisso and its employees, and the company and its subsidiaries were responsible for creating a quarter of all jobs in Minamata. The city was even dubbed Chisso's "castle town," in reference to the capital cities of feudal lords who ruled Japan during the Edo period.


title: Minamata disease

text: The Chisso factory first started acetaldehyde production in 1932, with 210 tons that year. In 1951, production had jumped to 6,000 tons and eventually peaked at 45,245 tons in 1960. The factory's output historically amounted to between a quarter and a third of Japan's total acetaldehyde production. The chemical reaction used to produce the acetaldehyde employed mercury sulfate as a catalyst. Starting in August 1951, the co-catalyst was changed from manganese dioxide to ferric sulfide. A side reaction of this catalytic cycle led to the production of a small amount (about 5% of the outflow) of the organic mercury compound methylmercury. As a result of the catalyst change, this highly toxic compound was released into Minamata Bay regularly between 1951 and 1968, when this production method was finally discontinued.


title: Minamata disease

text: On 21 April 1956, a five-year-old girl was examined at Chisso's factory hospital in Minamata. The physicians were puzzled by her symptoms: difficulty walking, difficulty speaking, and convulsions. Two days later, her younger sister also began to exhibit the same symptoms and she, too, was hospitalised. The girls' mother informed doctors that her neighbour's daughter was also experiencing similar problems. After a house-to-house investigation, eight further patients were discovered and hospitalised. On 1 May, the hospital director reported to the local public health office the discovery of an "epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system", marking the official discovery of Minamata disease.


title: Minamata disease

text: To investigate the epidemic, the city government and various medical practitioners formed the Strange Disease Countermeasures Committee at the end of May 1956. Owing to the localised nature of the disease, it was suspected to be contagious and as a precaution patients were isolated and their homes disinfected. Although contagion was later disproved, this initial response contributed to the stigmatisation and discrimination experienced by Minamata survivors from the local community. During its investigations, the committee uncovered surprising anecdotal evidence of the strange behaviour of cats and other wildlife in the areas surrounding patients' homes. From around 1950 onward, cats had been seen to have convulsions, go mad, and die. Locals called it the "cat dancing disease", owing to their erratic movement. Crows had fallen from the sky, seaweed no longer grew on the sea bed, and fish floated dead on the surface of the sea. As the extent of the outbreak was understood, the committee invited researchers from Kumamoto University (or Kumadai) to help in the research effort.


title: Minamata disease

text: The Kumamoto University Research Group was formed on 24 August 1956. Researchers from the School of Medicine began visiting Minamata regularly and admitted patients to the university hospital for detailed examinations. A more complete picture of the symptoms exhibited by patients was gradually uncovered. The disease developed without any prior warning, with patients complaining of a loss of sensation and numbness in their hands and feet. They became unable to grasp small objects or fasten buttons. They could not run or walk without stumbling, their voices changed in pitch, and many patients complained of difficulties seeing, hearing, and swallowing. In general, these symptoms worsened and were followed by severe convulsions, coma, and eventually death. By October 1956, forty patients had been discovered, fourteen of whom had died: an alarming case fatality rate of 35%.


title: Minamata disease

text: Researchers from Kumadai also began to focus on the cause of the strange disease. They found that the victims, often members of the same family, were clustered in fishing hamlets along the shore of Minamata Bay. The staple food of victims was invariably fish and shellfish from Minamata Bay. The cats in the local area, which tended to eat scraps from the family table, had died with symptoms similar to those now discovered in humans. This led the researchers to believe that the outbreak was caused by some kind of food poisoning, with contaminated fish and shellfish being the prime suspects.


title: Minamata disease

text: On 4 November, the research group announced its initial findings: "Minamata disease is rather considered to be poisoning by a heavy metal, presumably it enters the human body mainly through fish and shellfish."


title: Minamata disease

text: As soon as the investigation identified a heavy metal as the causal substance, the wastewater from the Chisso factory was immediately suspected as the origin. The company's own tests revealed that its wastewater contained many heavy metals in concentrations sufficiently high to bring about serious environmental degradation, including lead, mercury, manganese, arsenic, thallium, and copper, plus the chalcogen selenium. Identifying which particular poison was responsible for the disease proved to be extremely difficult and time-consuming. During 1957 and 1958, many different theories were proposed by different researchers. At first, manganese was thought to be the causal substance due to the high concentrations found in fish and the organs of the deceased. Thallium, selenium, and a multiple contaminant theory were also proposed, but in March 1958, visiting British neurologist Douglas McAlpine suggested that Minamata symptoms resembled those of organic mercury poisoning, so the focus of the investigation centered on mercury.


title: Minamata disease

text: In February 1959, the mercury distribution in Minamata Bay was investigated. The results shocked the researchers involved. Large quantities of mercury were detected in fish, shellfish, and sludge from the bay. The highest concentrations centred around the Chisso factory wastewater canal in Hyakken Harbour and decreased going out to sea, clearly identifying the plant as the source of contamination. Pollution was so heavy at the mouth of the wastewater canal, a figure of 2 kg of mercury per ton of sediment was measured: a level that would be economically viable to mine. Indeed, Chisso did later set up a subsidiary to reclaim and sell the mercury recovered from the sludge.


title: Minamata disease

text: Hair samples were taken from the individuals with the disease and also from the Minamata population in general. In patients, the maximum mercury level recorded was 705 parts per million (ppm), indicating very heavy exposure and in nonsymptomatic Minamata residents, the level was 191 ppm. This compared to an average level of 4 ppm for people living outside the Minamata area.


title: Minamata disease

text: On 12 November 1959, the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Minamata Food Poisoning Subcommittee published its results:


title: Minamata disease

text: During the Kumadai investigation, the causal substance had been identified as a heavy metal and it was widely presumed that the Chisso factory was the source of the contamination. Chisso was coming under closer scrutiny and to deflect criticism, the wastewater output route was changed. Chisso knew of the environmental damage caused by its wastewater and was well aware that it was the prime suspect in the Minamata disease investigation. Despite this, from September 1958, instead of discharging its waste into Hyakken Harbour (the focus of investigation and source of original contamination), it discharged wastewater directly into Minamata River. The immediate effect was the death of fish at the mouth of the river, and from that point on, new Minamata disease victims began to appear in other fishing villages up and down the coast of the Shiranui Sea, as the pollution spread over an even greater area.


title: Minamata disease

text: Chisso failed to co-operate with the Kumadai research team. It withheld information on its industrial processes, leaving researchers to speculate what products the factory was producing and by what methods. The Chisso factory's hospital director, Hajime Hosokawa, established a laboratory in the research division of the facility to carry out his own experiments into Minamata disease in July 1959. Food to which factory wastewater had been added was fed to healthy cats. Seventy-eight days into the experiment, cat 400 exhibited symptoms of Minamata disease and pathological examinations confirmed a diagnosis of organic mercury poisoning. Chisso did not reveal these significant results to the investigators and ordered Hosokawa to stop his research.


title: Minamata disease

text: In an attempt to undermine Kumadai researchers' organic mercury theory, Chisso and other parties with a vested interest that the factory remain open (including the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and the Japan Chemical Industry Association) funded research into alternative causes of the disease, other than its own waste.


title: Minamata disease

text: Polluting wastewater had damaged the fisheries around Minamata ever since the opening of the Chisso factory in 1908. The Minamata Fishing Cooperative had managed to win small payments of "sympathy money" from the company in 1926 and again in 1943, but after the outbreak of Minamata disease, the fishing situation was becoming critical. Fishing catches had declined by 91% between 1953 and 1957. The Kumamoto prefectural government issued a partial ban on the sale of fish caught in the heavily polluted Minamata Bay but not an all-out ban, which would have legally obliged it to compensate the fishermen. The fishing cooperative protested against Chisso and angrily forced their way into the factory on 6 August and 12 August, demanding compensation. A committee was set up by Minamata Mayor Todomu Nakamura to mediate between the two sides, but this committee was stacked heavily in the company's favour. On 29 August, the fishing cooperative agreed to the mediation committee's proposal, stating: "In order to end the anxiety of the citizens, we swallow our tears and accept". Chisso paid the cooperative ¥20 million (US$183,477 — about US$1.7 million in 2021 value) and set up a ¥15 million ($137,608 — about 1.25 million today) fund to promote the recovery of fishing.


title: Minamata disease

text: Since the change of route of wastewater output in 1958, pollution had spread up and down the Shiranui Sea, damaging fisheries there as well. Emboldened by the success of the small Minamata cooperative, the Kumamoto Prefectural Alliance of Fishing Cooperatives also decided to seek compensation from Chisso. On 17 October, 1,500 fishermen from the alliance descended on the factory to demand negotiations. When this produced no results, the alliance members took their campaign to Tokyo, securing an official visit to Minamata by members of the Japanese Diet. During the visit on 2 November, alliance members forced their way into the factory and rioted, causing many injuries and ¥10 million ($100,000) worth of damage. The violence was covered widely in the media, bringing the nation's attention to the Minamata issue for the first time since the outbreak began. Another mediation committee was set up, and an agreement was hammered out and signed on 17 December. Some ¥25 million of "sympathy money" was paid to the alliance and a ¥65 million fishing recovery fund was established.


title: Minamata disease

text: In 1959, the people with Minamata disease were in a much weaker position than the fishermen. The recently formed Minamata Disease Patients Families Mutual Aid Society was much more divided than the fishing cooperatives. Patients' families were the victims of discrimination and ostracism from the local community. Local people felt that the company (and their city that depended upon it) was facing economic ruin. To some patients, this ostracism by the community represented a greater fear than the disease itself. After beginning a sit-in at the Chisso factory gates in November 1959, the patients asked Kumamoto Prefecture Governor Hirosaku Teramoto to include the patients' request for compensation with the mediation that was ongoing with the prefectural fishing alliance. Chisso agreed and after a few weeks' further negotiation, another "sympathy money" agreement was signed. Patients who were certified by a Ministry of Health and Welfare committee would be compensated: adult patients received ¥100,000 ($917) per year; children ¥30,000 ($275) per year, and families of dead patients would receive a one-off ¥320,000 ($2935) payment.


title: Minamata disease

text: On 21 October 1959, Chisso was ordered by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry to switch back its wastewater drainage from the Minamata River to Hyakken Harbour and to speed up the installation of wastewater treatment systems at the factory. Chisso installed a Cyclator purification system on 19 December 1959, and opened it with a special ceremony. Chisso's president Kiichi Yoshioka drank a glass of water supposedly treated through the Cyclator to demonstrate that it was safe. In fact, the wastewater from the factory, which the company knew still contained mercury and led to Minamata disease when fed to cats, was not being treated through the Cyclator at the time. Testimony at a later Niigata Minamata disease trial proved that Chisso knew the Cyclator to be completely ineffective: "The purification tank was installed as a social solution and did nothing to remove organic mercury."


title: Minamata disease

text: The deception was successful and almost all parties involved in Minamata disease were duped into believing that the factory's wastewater had been made safe from December 1959 onward. This widespread assumption meant that doctors were not expecting new patients to appear, resulting in numerous problems in the years to follow as the pollution continued. In most people's minds, the issue of Minamata disease had been resolved.


title: Minamata disease

text: The years between the first set of "sympathy money" agreements in 1959 and the start of the first legal action to be taken against Chisso in 1969 are often called the "ten years of silence". In fact, much activity on the part of the patients and fishermen took place during this period, but nothing had a significant impact on the actions of the company or the coverage of Minamata in the Japanese media.


title: Minamata disease

text: Despite the almost universal assumption to the contrary, the wastewater treatment facilities installed in December 1959 had no effect on the level of organic mercury being released into the Shiranui Sea. The pollution and the disease it caused continued to spread. The Kumamoto and Kagoshima prefectural governments conducted a joint survey in late 1960 and early 1961 into the level of mercury in the hair of people living around the Shiranui Sea. The results confirmed that organic mercury had spread all around the inland sea and that people were still being poisoned by contaminated fish. Hundreds of people were discovered to have levels greater than 50 ppm of mercury in their hair, the level at which people are likely to experience nerve damage. The highest result recorded was that of a woman from Goshonoura island who had 920 ppm in her sample.


title: Minamata disease

text: The prefectural governments did not publish the results and did nothing in response to these surveys. The participants who had donated hair samples were not informed of their result, even when they requested it. A follow-up study ten years later discovered that many had died from "unknown causes".


title: Minamata disease

text: Local doctors and medical officials had noticed for a long time an abnormally high frequency of cerebral palsy and other infantile disorders in the Minamata area. In 1961, a number of medical professionals, including Masazumi Harada (later to be honored by the United Nations for his body of work on Minamata disease), set about re-examining children diagnosed with cerebral palsy. The symptoms of the children closely mirrored those of adult Minamata disease patients, but many of their mothers did not exhibit symptoms. The fact that these children had been born after the initial outbreak and had never been fed contaminated fish also led their mothers to believe they were not victims. At the time the medical establishment believed the placenta would protect the foetus from toxins in the bloodstream, which is indeed the case with most chemicals. What was not known at the time was that exactly the opposite is the case with methylmercury: the placenta removes it from the mother's bloodstream and concentrates the chemical in the foetus.


title: Minamata disease

text: After several years of study and the autopsies of two children, the doctors announced that these children had an as-yet unrecognised congenital form of Minamata disease. The certification committee convened on 29 November 1962 and agreed that the two dead children and the sixteen children still alive should be certified as patients, and therefore liable for "sympathy" payments from Chisso, in line with the 1959 agreement.


title: Minamata disease

text: Minamata disease broke out again in 1965, this time along the banks of the Agano River in Niigata Prefecture. The polluting factory (owned by Showa Denko) employed a chemical process using a mercury catalyst very similar to that used by Chisso in Minamata. As in Minamata, from the autumn of 1964 to the spring of 1965, cats living along the banks of the Agano River had been seen to go mad and die. Before long, patients appeared with identical symptoms to patients living on the Shiranui Sea, and the outbreak was made public on 12 June 1965. Researchers from the Kumamoto University Research Group and Hajime Hosokawa (who had retired from Chisso in 1962) used their experience from Minamata and applied it to the Niigata outbreak. In September 1966, a report was issued proving Showa Denko's pollution to be the cause of this second Minamata disease outbreak.


title: Minamata disease

text: Unlike the patients in Minamata, the victims of Showa Denko's pollution lived a considerable distance from the factory and had no particular link to the company. As a result, the local community was much more supportive of patients' groups and a lawsuit was filed against Showa Denko in March 1968, only three years after discovery.


title: Minamata disease

text: The events in Niigata catalysed a change in response to the original Minamata incident. The scientific research carried out in Niigata forced a re-examination of that done in Minamata and the decision of Niigata patients to sue the polluting company allowed the same response to be considered in Minamata. Masazumi Harada has said that, "It may sound strange, but if this second Minamata disease had not broken out, the medical and social progress achieved by now in Kumamoto... would have been impossible."


title: Minamata disease

text: Around this time, two other pollution-related diseases were also grabbing headlines in Japan. People with Yokkaichi asthma and itai-itai disease were forming citizens' groups and filed lawsuits against the polluting companies in September 1967 and March 1968, respectively. As a group, these diseases came to be known as the four big pollution diseases of Japan.


title: Minamata disease

text: Slowly but surely, the mood in Minamata and Japan as a whole was shifting. Minamata patients found the public gradually becoming more receptive and sympathetic as the decade wore on. This culminated in 1968 with the establishment in Minamata of the Citizens' Council for Minamata Disease Countermeasures, which was to become the chief citizens' support group to the Minamata patients. A founding member of the citizens' council was Michiko Ishimure, a local housewife and poet who later that year published "Pure Land, Poisoned Sea: Our Minamata disease", a book of poetic essays that received national acclaim.


title: Minamata disease

text: Finally on 26 September 1968 – twelve years after the discovery of the disease (and four months after Chisso had stopped production of acetaldehyde using its mercury catalyst) – the Japanese government issued an official conclusion as to the cause of Minamata disease:


title: Minamata disease

text: The conclusion contained many factual errors: eating fish and shellfish from other areas of the Shiranui Sea, not just Minamata Bay, could cause the disease; eating small amounts, as well as large amounts of contaminated fish over a long time also produced symptoms; the outbreak had not, in fact, ended in 1960 nor had mercury-removing wastewater facilities been installed in January 1960. Nevertheless, the government announcement brought a feeling of relief to a great many victims and their families. Many felt vindicated in their long struggle to force Chisso to accept responsibility for causing the disease and expressed thanks that their plight had been recognised by their social superiors. The struggle now focused on to what extent the victims should be compensated.


title: Minamata disease

text: In light of the government announcement, the patients of the Mutual Aid Society decided to ask for a new compensation agreement with Chisso and submitted the demand on 6 October. Chisso replied that it was unable to judge what would be fair compensation and asked the Japanese government to set up a binding arbitration committee to decide. This proposal split the members of the patients' society, many of whom were extremely wary of entrusting their fate to a third party, as they had done in 1959 with unfortunate results. At a meeting on the 5 April 1969, the opposing views within the society could not be reconciled and the organisation split into the pro-arbitration group and the litigation group (who decided to sue the company). That summer, Chisso sent gifts to the families who opted for arbitration rather than litigation.


title: Minamata disease

text: An arbitration committee was duly set up by the Ministry of Health and Welfare on 25 April, but it took almost a year to draw up a draft compensation plan. A newspaper leak in March 1970 revealed that the committee would ask Chisso to pay only ¥2 million ($5,600) for dead patients and ¥140,000 to ¥200,000 ($390 to $560) per year to surviving patients. The arbitration group were dismayed by the sums on offer. They petitioned the committee, together with patients and supporters of the litigation group, for a fairer deal. The arbitration committee announced their compensation plan on 25 May in a disorderly session at the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Tokyo. Thirteen protesters were arrested.


title: Minamata disease

text: Instead of accepting the agreement as they had promised, the arbitration group asked for increases. The committee was forced to revise its plan and the patients waited inside the ministry building for two days while they did so. The final agreement was signed on 27 May. Payments for deaths ranged from ¥1.7 million to ¥4 million ($4,700 to $11,100), one-time payments from ¥1 million to ¥4.2 million ($2,760 to $11,660) and annual payments between ¥170,000 and ¥380,000 ($470 to $1,100) for surviving patients. On the day of the signing, the Minamata Citizens' Council held a protest outside the Chisso factory gates. One of the Chisso trade unions held an eight-hour strike in protest at the poor treatment of the arbitration group by their own company.


title: Minamata disease

text: The litigation group, representing 41 certified patients (17 already deceased) in 28 families, submitted their suit against Chisso in the Kumamoto District Court on 14 June 1969. The leader of the group, Eizō Watanabe (a former leader of the Mutual Aid Society), declared, "Today, and from this day forth, we are fighting against the power of the state." Those who decided to sue the company came under fierce pressure to drop their lawsuits. One woman was visited personally by a Chisso executive and harassed by her neighbours. She was blackballed by the community, her family's fishing boat used without permission, their fishing nets were cut, and human faeces were thrown at her in the street.


title: Minamata disease

text: The litigation group and their lawyers were helped substantially by an informal national network of citizens' groups that had sprung up around the country in 1969. The Associations to Indict those Responsible for Minamata Disease were instrumental in raising awareness and funds for the lawsuit. The Kumamoto branch, in particular, was especially helpful to the case. In September 1969, they set up a Trial Research Group, which included law professors, medical researchers (including Harada), sociologists and even Michiko Ishimure to provide useful material to the lawyers to improve their legal arguments. Their report, "Corporate Responsibility for Minamata Disease: Chisso's Illegal Acts", published in August 1970, formed the basis of the ultimately successful lawsuit.


title: Minamata disease

text: The trial lasted almost four years. The litigation group's lawyers sought to prove Chisso's corporate negligence. Three main legal points had to be overcome to win the case. First, the lawyers had to show that methylmercury caused Minamata disease and that the company's factory was the source of pollution. The extensive research by Kumadai and the government's conclusion meant that this point was proved quite easily. Second, they needed to show that Chisso could and should have anticipated the effect of its wastewater and taken steps to prevent the tragedy (i.e., was the company negligent in its duty of care). Third, it had to disprove that the "sympathy money" agreement of 1959, which forbade the patients from claiming any further compensation, was a legally binding contract.


title: Minamata disease

text: The trial heard from patients and their families, but the most important testimony came from Chisso executives and employees. The most dramatic testimony came from Hosokawa, who spoke on 4 July 1970 from his hospital bed where he was dying of cancer. Hosokawa explained his experiments with cats, including the infamous "cat 400", which developed Minamata disease after being fed factory wastewater. He also spoke of his opposition to the 1958 change in wastewater output route to Minamata River. Hosokawa's testimony was backed up by a colleague who also told how Chisso officials had ordered them to halt their cat experiments in the autumn of 1959. Hosokawa died three months after giving his testimony. Former factory manager Eiichi Nishida admitted that the company put profits ahead of safety, resulting in dangerous working conditions and a lack of care with mercury. Former Chisso President Kiichi Yoshioka admitted that the company promoted a theory of dumped World War II explosives, though it knew it to be unfounded.


title: Minamata disease

text: The verdict handed down on 20 March 1973 represented a complete victory for the patients of the litigation group:


title: Minamata disease

text: The "sympathy money" agreement was found to be invalid and Chisso was ordered to make one-time payments of ¥18 million ($66,000) for each deceased patient and from ¥16 million to ¥18 million ($59,000 to $66,000) for each surviving patient. The total compensation of ¥937 million ($3.4 million) was the largest sum ever awarded by a Japanese court.


title: Minamata disease

text: While the struggles of the arbitration and litigation groups against Chisso were continuing, a new group of individuals with Minamata disease emerged. To qualify for compensation under the 1959 agreement, patients had to be officially recognised by various "ad hoc" certification committees according to their symptoms. However, in an effort to limit the liability and financial burden on the company, these committees were sticking to a rigid interpretation of Minamata disease. They required that patients must exhibit all symptoms of Hunter-Russell syndrome – the standard diagnosis of organic mercury poisoning at the time, which originated from an industrial accident in the United Kingdom in 1940. The committee certified only patients exhibiting explicit symptoms of the British syndrome, rather than basing their diagnosis on the disease in Japan. This resulted in many applicants being rejected by the committee, leaving them confused and frustrated.


title: Minamata disease

text: As of March 2001, 2,265 victims had been officially certified and over 10,000 people had received financial compensation from Chisso, although they were not recognised as official victims. The issue of quantifying the impact of Minamata disease is complicated, as a full epidemiological study has never been conducted and patients were recognised only if they voluntarily applied to a certification council to seek financial compensation. Many individuals with Minamata disease faced discrimination and ostracism from the local community if they came out into the open about their symptoms. Some people feared the disease to be contagious, and many local people were fiercely loyal to Chisso, depending on the company for their livelihoods. In this atmosphere, those affected were reluctant to come forward and seek certification. Despite these factors, over 17,000 people have applied to the council for certification. Also, in recognising an applicant as having Minamata disease, the certification council qualified that patient to receive financial compensation from Chisso. For that reason, the council has always been under immense pressure to reject claimants and minimise the financial burden placed on Chisso. Rather than being a council of medical recognition, the decisions of the council were always affected by the economic and political factors surrounding Minamata and the Chisso corporation. Furthermore, compensation of the victims led to continued strife in the community, including unfounded accusations that some of the people who sought compensation did not actually have the disease. More properly, the impact should be called a criminal 'poisoning', not a clinical 'disease'. These forms of obfuscation are commonly experienced by 'environmental victims' in many countries.


title: Minamata disease

text: In 1978, the National Institute for Minamata Disease was established in Minamata. It consists of four departments: The Department of Basic Medical Science, The Department of Clinical Medicine, The Department of Epidemiology and The Department of International Affairs and Environmental Sciences. In 1986, The Institute became a WHO Collaborating Centre for Studies on the Health Effects of Mercury Compounds. The Institute seeks to improve medical treatment of Minamata disease patients and conducts research on mercury compounds and their impact on organisms as well as potential detoxification mechanisms. In April, 2008 the Institute invented a method for absorbing gaseous mercury in order to prevent air pollution and enable recycling of the metal.


title: Minamata disease

text: The movement for redress by Minamata victims and activists and the national outrage their movement elicited played a central role in the rise of environmental protection in Japan. The 1970 session of the Japanese Diet became remembered as the "Pollution Diet", as the Japanese government took action under rising pressure from the Minamata disease movement as well as other major environmental catastrophes such as Yokkaichi asthma and itai-itai disease. Fourteen new environmental laws were passed in a single session, giving Japan what at the time were the most stringent environmental protection laws in the world. These new laws included a Water Pollution Act and nationwide regulations of toxic discharges. The "polluter pays" principle was introduced. A national Environmental Agency, which later developed into the Ministry of Environment, was founded in 1971. National governmental expenditures on environmental issues almost doubled between 1970 and 1975 and tripled at the local government level.


title: Minamata disease

text: According to historian Timothy S. George, the environmental protests that surrounded the disease appeared to aid in the democratization of Japan. When the first cases were reported and subsequently suppressed, the rights of the victims were not recognised, and they were given no compensation. Instead, the affected were ostracised from their community due to ignorance about the disease, as people were afraid that it was contagious.


title: Minamata disease

text: The people directly impacted by the pollution of Minamata Bay were not originally allowed to participate in actions that would affect their future. Disease victims, fishing families, and company employees were excluded from the debate. Progress occurred when Minamata victims were finally allowed to come to a meeting to discuss the issue. As a result, postwar Japan took a small step toward democracy.


title: Minamata disease

text: Through the evolution of public sentiments, the victims and environmental protesters were able to acquire standing and proceed more effectively in their cause. The involvement of the press also aided the process of democratization because it caused more people to become aware of the facts of Minamata disease and the pollution that caused it. However, although the environmental protests did result in Japan becoming more democratized, it did not completely rid Japan of the system that first suppressed the fishermen and individuals with Minamata disease.


title: Minamata disease

text: Toshiko Akiyoshi, touched by the plight of the fishing village, wrote a jazz suite, "Minamata", that was to be the central piece of the Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin Big Band's 1976 album on RCA, "Insights". The piece was constructed in three parts, to musically reflect the tragedy – "Peaceful Village", "Prosperity & Consequence", and "Epilogue". Akiyoshi used Japanese vocalists to sing the Japanese lyrics of a tone poem that were part of the composition. The album won many awards in jazz circles, including "Downbeat" best album award, largely on the strength of this piece, which brought some further attention to the tragedy. Insights (Toshiko Akiyoshi – Lew Tabackin Big Band)


title: Minamata disease

text: The song "Kepone Factory" on Dead Kennedys' "In God We Trust, Inc." makes reference to the disaster in its chorus.


title: Minamata disease

text: The song "The Disease of the Dancing Cats" by the band Bush on the album "The Science of Things" is in reference to the disaster.


title: Minamata disease

text: Photographic documentation of Minamata started in the early 1960s. One photographer who arrived in 1960 was Shisei Kuwabara, straight from university and photo school, who had his photographs published in "Weekly Asahi" as early as May 1960. The first exhibition of his photographs of Minamata was held in the Fuji Photo Salon in Tokyo in 1962, and the first of his book-length anthologies, "Minamata Disease", was published in Japan in 1965. He has returned to Minamata many times since.


title: Minamata disease

text: A dramatic photographic essay by W. Eugene Smith brought world attention to Minamata disease. He and his Japanese wife lived in Minamata from 1971 to 1973. The most famous and striking photo of the essay, "Tomoko and Mother in the Bath" (1972), shows Ryoko Kamimura holding her severely deformed daughter, Tomoko, in a Japanese bath chamber. Tomoko was poisoned by methylmercury while still in the womb. The photo was very widely published. It was posed by Smith with the co-operation of Ryoko and Tomoko to dramatically illustrate the consequences of the disease. It has subsequently been withdrawn from circulation at the request of Tomoko's family, so does not appear in recent anthologies of Smith's works. Smith and his wife were extremely dedicated to the cause of the people with Minamata disease, closely documenting their struggle for recognition and right to compensation. Smith was himself attacked and seriously injured by Chisso employees in an incident in Goi, Ichihara city, near Tokyo on January 7, 1972, in an attempt to stop the photographer from further revealing the issue to the world. The 54-year-old Smith survived the attack, but his sight in one eye deteriorated and his health never fully recovered before his death in 1978. Johnny Depp plays W. Eugene Smith in "Minamata" (2020) a drama based on the book written by Smith's wife.


title: Minamata disease

text: Japanese photographer Takeshi Ishikawa, who assisted Smith in Minamata, has since exhibited his own photographs documenting the disease. His photographs cover the years 1971 to the present, with Minamata victims as his subjects.


title: Minamata disease

text: The prominent Japanese documentary filmmaker Noriaki Tsuchimoto made a series of films, starting with "" (1971) and including "The Shiranui Sea" (1975), documenting the incident and siding with the victims in their struggle against Chisso and the government.


title: Minamata disease

text: Kikujiro Fukushima, a well-known Japanese photographer and journalist, published a series of photographs in 1980 concerning pollution in Japan, including Minamata disease. Some negatives of these photos are available on the website, and Kyodo News Images holds the rights to them.


title: Minamata disease

text: Minamata disease remains an important issue in contemporary Japanese society. Lawsuits against Chisso and the prefectural and national governments are still continuing and many regard the government responses to date as inadequate. The company's "historical overview" in its current website makes no mention of their role in the mass contamination of Minamata and the dreadful aftermath. Their 2004 Annual Report, however, reports an equivalent of about US$50 million (5,820 million yen) in "Minamata Disease Compensation Liabilities". From 2000 to 2003, the company also reported total compensation liabilities of over US$170 million. Their 2000 accounts also show that the Japanese and Kumamoto prefectural governments waived an enormous US$560 million in related liabilities. Their FY2004 and FY2005 reports refer to Minamata disease as "mad hatter's disease", a term coined from the mercury poisoning experienced by hat-makers of the last few centuries (cf. Erethism).


title: Minamata disease

text: A memorial service was held at the Minamata Disease Municipal Museum on 1 May 2006 to mark 50 years since the official discovery of the disease. Despite bad weather, the service was attended by over 600 people, including Chisso chairman Shunkichi Goto and Environment Minister Yuriko Koike.


title: Minamata disease

text: On Monday, March 29, 2010, a group of 2,123 uncertified victims reached a settlement with the government of Japan, the Kumamoto Prefectural government, and Chisso Corporation to receive individual lump-sum payments of 2.1 million yen and monthly medical allowances.


title: Minamata disease

text: Most congenital patients are now in their forties and fifties and their health is deteriorating. Their parents, who are often their only source of care, are into their seventies or eighties or already deceased. Often, these patients find themselves tied to their own homes and the care of their family, effectively isolated from the local community. Some welfare facilities for patients do exist. One notable example is Hot House, a vocational training centre for congenital patients as well as other disabled people in the Minamata area. Hot House members are also involved in raising awareness of Minamata disease, often attending conferences and seminars as well as making regular visits to elementary schools throughout Kumamoto Prefecture.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top three universities in Canada. With an annual research budget of $759million, UBC funds over 8,000 projects a year.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The Vancouver campus is situated adjacent to the University Endowment Lands located about west of downtown Vancouver. UBC is home to TRIUMF, Canada's national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, which houses the world's largest cyclotron. In addition to the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies and Stuart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute, UBC and the Max Planck Society collectively established the first Max Planck Institute in North America, specializing in quantum materials. One of the largest research libraries in Canada, the UBC Library system has over 9.9million volumes among its 21 branches. The Okanagan campus, acquired in 2005, is located in Kelowna, British Columbia.


title: University of British Columbia

text: Eight Nobel laureates, 74 Rhodes scholars, 65 Olympians garnering medals, ten fellows in both American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Royal Society, and 273 fellows to the Royal Society of Canada have been affiliated with UBC. Three Canadian prime ministers, including Canada's first female prime minister, Kim Campbell, and current prime minister, Justin Trudeau, have been educated at UBC.


title: University of British Columbia

text: In 1877, six years after British Columbia joined Canada, the Superintendent of Education, John Jessop, submitted a proposal for the formation of a provincial University. The provincial legislature passed "An Act Respecting the University of British Columbia" in 1890, but disagreements arose over whether to build the university on Vancouver Island or the mainland.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The British Columbia University Act of 1908 formally called a provincial University into being, although its location was not specified. The governance was modelled on the provincial University of Toronto Act of 1906 which created a bicameral system of university government consisting of a senate (faculty), responsible for academic policy, and a board of governors (citizens) exercising exclusive control over financial policy and having formal authority in all other matters. The president, appointed by the board, was to provide a link between the two bodies and to perform institutional leadership. The Act constituted a twenty-one member senate with Francis Carter-Cotton of Vancouver as chancellor.


title: University of British Columbia

text: Before the University Act, there had been several attempts at creating a degree-granting university with help from the universities of Toronto and McGill. Columbian College in New Westminster, through its affiliation with Victoria College of the University of Toronto, began to offer university-level credit at the turn-of-the-century, but McGill came to dominate higher education in the early 1900s.


title: University of British Columbia

text: Building on a successful affiliation between Vancouver and Victoria high schools with McGill University, Henry Marshall Tory helped establish the McGill University College of British Columbia. From 1906 to 1915, McGill BC (as it was called) operated as a private institution providing the first few years toward a degree at McGill University or elsewhere. The Henry Marshall Tory Medal was established in 1941 by Tory, founding president of the University of Alberta and of the National Research Council of Canada, and a co-founder of Carleton University.


title: University of British Columbia

text: In the meantime, appeals were made to the government to revive the earlier legislation for a provincial institution, leading to the University Endowment Act in 1907, and the University Act in 1908. In 1910 the Point Grey site was chosen, and the government appointed Dr. Frank Fairchild Wesbrook as president in 1913, and Leonard Klinck as dean of Agriculture in 1914. A declining economy and the outbreak of war in August 1914 compelled the university to postpone plans for building at Point Grey, and instead the former McGill University College site at Fairview became home to the university until 1925. On the first day of lectures, September 30, 1915, the new independent university absorbed McGill University College. The University of British Columbia awarded its first degrees in 1916, and Klinck became the second president in 1919, serving until 1944.


title: University of British Columbia

text: In 1917 Evlyn Fenwick Farris became the first woman in Canada to be appointed to the board of governors of a university — a founding governor of UBC. She was also the first woman to be appointed to the UBC Senate. Active in its formation, the University Women's Club of Vancouver considered UBC as its "godchild".


title: University of British Columbia

text: World War I dominated campus life and the student body was "decimated" by enlistments for active service, with three hundred male UBC students in Company "D" alone. By the war's end 697 male members of the university had enlisted. 109 students graduated in the three war-time congregations, all but one in the Faculty of Arts and Science.


title: University of British Columbia

text: By 1920, the university had only three faculties: Arts, Applied Science, and Agriculture (with Departments of Agronomy, Animal Husbandry, Dairying, Horticulture and Poultry). It only awarded the degrees of Bachelor of Arts (BA), Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc), and Bachelor of Science in agriculture (BSA). There were 576 male students and 386 female students in the 1920–21 winter session, but only 64 academic staff, including 6 women.


title: University of British Columbia

text: In the early part of the 20th century, professional education expanded beyond the traditional fields of theology, law and medicine. Although UBC did not offer degrees in these fields, it began to offer degrees in new professional areas such as engineering, agriculture, nursing and school teaching. It also introduced graduate training based on the German-inspired American model of specialized course work and the completion of a research thesis, with students completing M.A. degrees in natural sciences, social sciences and humanities.


title: University of British Columbia

text: In 1922, the twelve-hundred-strong student body embarked on a "Build the University" campaign. Students marched through the streets of Vancouver to draw attention to their plight, enlist popular support, and embarrass the government. Fifty-six thousand signatures were presented at legislature in support of the campaign, which was ultimately successful. On September 22, 1925, lectures began at the new Point Grey campus. Except for the library, Science and Power House buildings, all the campus buildings were temporary constructions. Students built two playing fields, but the university had no dormitories and no social centre. Still, the university continued to grow steadily.


title: University of British Columbia

text: Soon, however, the effects of the depression began to be felt. The provincial government, upon which the university depended heavily, cut the annual grant severely. In 1932–33, salaries were cut by up to 23%. Posts remained vacant, and a few faculty lost their jobs. Most graduate courses were dropped. In 1935, the university established the Department of Extension. Just as things began to improve, World War II began and Canada declared war on September 10, 1939. Soon afterwards, University President Klinck wrote:


title: University of British Columbia

text: From the day of the declaration of war, the University has been prepared to put at the disposal of the Government all possible assistance by way of laboratories, equipment and trained personnel, insofar as such action is consistent with the maintenance of reasonably efficient instructional standards. To do less would be unthinkable.


title: University of British Columbia

text: Heavy rains and melting snowfall eroded a deep ravine across the north end of the campus, in the Grand Campus Washout of 1935. The campus did not have storm drains, and surface runoff went down a ravine to the beach. When the university carved a ditch to drain flooding on University Avenue, the rush of water steepened the ravine and eroded it back as fast as per hour. The resulting gully eventually consumed , two bridges, and buildings near Graham House. The university was closed for 4 and a half days. Afterwards, the gully was filled with debris from a nearby landslide, and only traces are visible today.


title: University of British Columbia

text: Military training on the campus became popular, then mandatory. WWII marked the first provision of money from the federal government to the university for research purposes. This laid a foundation for future research grants from the federal government of Canada.


title: University of British Columbia

text: By the end of World War II, Point Grey's facilities could not meet the influx of veterans returning to their studies. The university needed new staff, courses, faculties, and buildings for teaching and accommodation. The student population rose from 2,974 in 1944–45 to 9,374 in 1947–48. Surplus Army and Air Force camps were used for both classrooms and accommodation. The university took over fifteen complete camps during the 1945–46 session, with a sixteenth camp on Little Mountain, in Vancouver, converted into suites for married students. Most of the camps were dismantled and carried by barge or truck to the university where the huts were scattered across the campus.


title: University of British Columbia

text: Student numbers hit 9,374 in 1948; more than 53% of the students were war veterans in 1947–67. Between 1947 and 1951, the university built twenty new permanent buildings, including the War Memorial Gym, built with money raised primarily by the students, was dedicated on October 26, 1951.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The single-University policy in the West was changed as existing colleges of the provincial Universities gained autonomy as Universities – the University of Victoria was established in 1963.


title: University of British Columbia

text: On February 10, 1964, Harvey Reginald MacMillan donated $8.2million for postgraduate education to the university.


title: University of British Columbia

text: Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announced the creation of the Museum of Anthropology at UBC on July 1, 1971. At a construction cost of $2.5million the museum building, designed by Arthur Erickson, opened in 1976. That same year, the university launched a normal school program under the direction of Sally Rogow to train educators methods to teach students with multiple disabilities or were visually impaired.


title: University of British Columbia

text: In 1993 UBC concluded its "World of Opportunity" capital campaign that started in 1988. In total the university raised $262 million for the campaign. An additional $72 million in "non-campaign fundraising" was also raised. During the administration of President Strangway, UBC abandoned its previous design and planning process and private donors started to have more influence on building design.


title: University of British Columbia

text: In 2015 UBC concluded its "Start an Evolution" capital campaign. The campaign's quiet phase started in April 2008 and it launched publicly in September 2011. The initial goal was to raise $1.5 billion. The campaign surpassed that goal and raised 1.624 billion.


title: University of British Columbia

text: UBC's 15th president was Professor Santa J. Ono. He assumed the presidency on August 15, 2016. He served previously as the 28th president of the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Martha Piper – who served as the 11th president of the university – served as interim president from September 1, 2015, to June 30, 2016, following the resignation of Dr. Arvind Gupta.


title: University of British Columbia

text: In early May 2020, UBC announced it would be holding a virtual graduation for the class of 2020 amid concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. The university received $419,248 from the Government of Canada to promote uptake of COVID-19 vaccines among public health leaders, community figures, Indigenous peoples, and leadership in municipal government.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The main campus is located at Point Grey, approximately from downtown Vancouver. It lies on unceded territory of the Musqueam people. It is near several beaches and has views of the North Shore mountains. The Pacific Spirit Regional Park serves as a green-belt between the campus and the city. Buildings on the Vancouver campus occupy gross on of maintained land. The campus street plan is mostly in a grid of malls (some of which are pedestrian-only). Lower Mall and West Mall are in the southwestern part of the peninsula, with Main, East, and Wesbrook Malls northeast of them.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The campus is not within Vancouver's city limits, and therefore UBC is policed by the RCMP rather than the Vancouver Police Department. However, the Vancouver Fire Department provides service to UBC under a contract. In addition to UBC RCMP, there is also the UBC Campus Security that patrols the campus. Postage sent to any building on campus includes Vancouver in the address.


title: University of British Columbia

text: UBC Vancouver also has two satellite campuses within the City of Vancouver: at Vancouver General Hospital, for the medical sciences, and at Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, for part-time credit and non-credit programmes. UBC is also a partner in the consortium backing Great Northern Way Campus Ltd, and is affiliated with a group of adjacent theological colleges, which include the Vancouver School of Theology, Regent College, Carey Theological College and Corpus Christi College.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The campus is home to numerous gardens. The UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, the first UBC department, holds a collection of over 8000 different kinds of plants used for research, conservation and education. The UBC botanical garden's original site was at the "Old Arboretum". All that remains of it today are trees planted in 1916 by John Davidson. The old arboretum is now home to many buildings including the First Nations House of Learning. The Nitobe Memorial Garden, built to honour Japanese scholar Inazo Nitobe, the garden has been the subject of more than fifteen years' study by a UBC professor, who believes its construction hides a number of impressive features, including references to Japanese philosophy and mythology, shadow bridges visible only at certain times of year, and positioning of a lantern filled with light at the exact date and time of Nitobe's death each year. The garden is behind the university's Asian Centre, which was built using steel girders from Japan's exhibit at Osaka Expo.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The campus also features the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts: a performing arts centre containing the Chan Shun Concert Hall, Telus Studio Theatre and the Royal Bank Cinema. It is often the site of convocation ceremonies and the filming location for the 4400 Center on the television show "The 4400", as well as the Madacorp entrance set on "Kyle XY". It has also been featured as the Cloud 9 Ballroom in the re-imagined "Battlestar Galactica" (Season 1, Episode 11: "Colonial Day").


title: University of British Columbia

text: Since the mid-1980s UBC has worked with property developers to build several large residential developments throughout UBC's campus. Such developments include: Chancellor Place, Hampton Place, Hawthorn Place and Wesbrook Village.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The Okanagan Campus was established in 2005 on what was previously the North Kelowna Campus of Okanagan University College, next to Kelowna International Airport. It was founded in partnership with the Syilx Okanagan Nation and it lies on their ancestral and unceded territory.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The campus had a 2019 enrolment of 10,708 undergraduate and graduate students, and has its own academic Senate. UBC Okanagan offers 62 undergraduate and 19 graduate programs in a diversity of disciplines including Arts, Science, Fine Arts, Engineering, Nursing, Human Kinetics, Education, Management, Social Work and Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies. UBC's Faculty of Medicine delivers medical doctor training through the Southern Medical Program with facilities at UBC Okanagan and a clinical academic campus at Kelowna General Hospital.


title: University of British Columbia

text: From 2005 through 2012, the Okanagan campus completed a $450million CDN expansion with construction of several residential, teaching and research buildings. The expansion included the Charles E. Fipke Centre for Innovative Research, University Centre, the Engineering Management and Education building, the Arts and Sciences Centre, Reichwald Health Sciences Centre, and several new student residence buildings. The Commons building was opened in 2019, and in 2020 construction is underway on two additional student housing facilities—Nechako and Skeena residences.


title: University of British Columbia

text: In 2010, UBC Okanagan campus grew from 105 ha. to 208.6 ha. Like the Point Grey campus, the Okanagan campus attracts Canadian and international students.


title: University of British Columbia

text: UBC Okanagan campus plans to expand its campus in 2022 in downtown Kelowna. There will be three towers included in the project that stretches over two lots. The first tower will have underground parking for 260 vehicles, a ground floor that features an atrium, cafe and medical clinic, an eight-storey ‘academic podium’ with a larger footprint that acts as a stage for 24 storeys of student housing on top. Approximately 352 units of student housing will be available. The tower will be 34 storeys in total.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The UBC Library, which has 7.8million volumes, 2.1million e-books, more than 370,000 e-journals, and more than 700,000 items in locally produced digital collections, is Canada's second largest academic library. From 2014 to 2015, there were more than 3.8million on-campus visits and over 9.5million visits to its website.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The former Main Library underwent construction and was renamed the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. Opened in April 2008, the Learning Centre incorporates the centre heritage block of the old Main Library with two new expansion wings and features an automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS), the first of its kind in Canada.


title: University of British Columbia

text: UBC has a number of different collections that have been donated and acquired. Major General Victor Odlum CB, CMG, DSO, VD donated his library of 10,000 books, which has been housed in "the Rockwoods Centre Library" of the UBC Library since 1963. After Videomatica's 2011 closure, UBC and SFU acquired their $1.7-million collection. UBC received about 28,000 movie DVDs, 4,000 VHS titles and 900 Blu-ray discs which are housed at UBC Library's Koerner branch on the Vancouver campus. In 2014, renowned art collector and antiques specialist, Uno Langmann, donated the Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs, which consists of more than 18,000 rare and unique early photographs from the 1850s to the 1970s. It is considered the premiere private collection of early provincial photos, and an important illustrated history of early photographic methods. In 2016, the library acquired one of the world's most rare and extraordinary books, the Kelmscott "Chaucer" from 1896. The book was printed in a limited edition of only 438 copies, but there are only 48 copies in the world with its particular type of binding.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at UBC is mandated to research, exhibit, collect, publish, educate and develop programs in the field of contemporary art and in contemporary approaches to the practice of art history and criticism. The Belkin maintains and manages the university's art collection of over 5,000 objects, including the Outdoor Art Collection, and an archive of over 30,000 items. Works from the permanent collection and archives, with an emphasis on recent acquisitions, are exhibited on an annual basis and are also used by other institutions for research and loans. The Belkin has an active publication program and participates in programming that includes lectures, tours, concerts and symposia related to art history, criticism and curating.


title: University of British Columbia

text: UBC has been ranked in the Corporate Knights school rankings, which ranks universities based on how well they integrate sustainability into the learning experience. The rankings adopt a broad definition of sustainability which encompasses both environmental and social concerns. In the 2011 rankings, UBC was ranked second in the category: top 5 teaching programs. UBC's law school ranked fifth among Canadian law schools. The Sauder School of Business' MBA programs were ranked fourth in Canada. The same rankings placed the business school 11th in Canada for its undergraduate business program.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) building has been called North America's most sustainable, innovative, and high performance building.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The CIRS building was first proposed in 2000 and was the brainchild of John Robinson, a sustainable development research initiative professor. Robinson worked with faculty members from Emily Carr, Simon Fraser University, and British Columbia Institute of Technology as well as head architect Peter Busby to design the building. It cost 23million dollars to complete the 65,000 square foot building.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The CIRS building exhibits regenerative sustainability, which means the building improves the surrounding environment. For example, it uses energy it obtains from the neighbouring Earth and Ocean Sciences (EOSC) Building to heat itself. The EOSC building uses roughly 1600 megawatts of heat and goes through ten air changes every hour, which wastes around 900 megawatts. The engineers who built the CIRS building saw this as an opportunity; the building takes the heat the EOSC building expels and uses 300 megawatts to heat itself before returning 600 megawatts to the EOSC building. In this way, the CIRS building restores its surrounding environment.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The CIRS building is designed to be net positive in four ways environmentally, meaning the processes or products that leave the building are more environmentally friendly than those that go into it. The best example of the building's net positivity is the building's wood holds nearly 600 tons of carbon – more carbon than the building's construction and maintenance created.


title: University of British Columbia

text: The building integrates 'green' sustainable and humane features, i.e. not only does it have a small ecological footprint, it also serves as an environment for occupants to be happy, healthy, and productive. This is the direction the University of British Columbia is moving towards to continue their ideas of sustainable development.


title: University of British Columbia

text: Following the success of the CIRS, UBC's new Student Union Building, which opened in summer 2015, was also designed to adhere to the most stringent sustainability requirements. It achieves the LEED Platinum standard – with features that include triple glazing, solar-powered cooling, solar water heaters, radiant heating and cooling in floors, green roof technology, water-efficient landscaping that uses greywater, natural air ventilation, and a composting facility that processes up to 30 tonnes of organic waste each year.


title: University of British Columbia

text: As of 2019, UBC consumed about four billion litres of water a year, which could fill 1,600 Olympic-sized swimming pools.