The 1984 Union Carbide gas leak left thousands in Bhopal, India dead and even more injured. The disaster was two-fold. The first wave of victims were those immediately killed or injured by the explosion. The second wave of victims were those left with chronic illnesses that have permanently reduce their quality of life. In both cases, a careless and distant corporate culture that prioritized profit over safety left one of India’s largest urban centers with a permanent social handicap. Further, the abandonment of any efforts to seek long-term solutions to this disaster has left a society paralyzed. Failures by the Union Carbide Company, a multinational corporation headquartered half a globe away from Bhopal, to make safety-conscious decisions and take actions contrary to the recommendations of local management officials is only one environmental disaster in a pattern that is all too common. The inability of the Indian state to adequately respond to disasters of this scale, early on in the recovery efforts, led to community-based attempts to organize and advocate. This ability of these groups to do so may be the only positive outcome from this lasting disaster. It is virtually impossible for even the wealthiest cities to prepare for an environmental disaster of this scale. However, the double standard becomes clear when studying the ability of wealthy cities to prevent such disasters. As the author, S. Ravi Rajan suggests, anthropologists, as community leaders and policy makers, are in a unique position to maneuver the public and private sectors to social development. By prioritizing proactive measures over reactive, and installing mechanisms to adequately hold those responsible accountable, the impacts to people and planet can be reduced or hopefully eliminated.