S

ome things are out of our control, 
like gas prices and traffic. You 
can’t control what others do or 
say, just like you can’t pick 
who’s in your family. Unfortunately, 
most of us assume we cannot control 
climate change.
Eyebrows have furrowed and 
anxiety levels have risen since the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 
Change released a report earlier this 
month, outlining the treacherous path 
Earth is taking toward increased 
temperatures. Scientists now believe 
the point of no return is when 
our climate changes by 1.5 
degrees Celsius, not 2.0 degrees 
Celsius as previously thought. 
If we don’t “act dramatically” 
to reduce the carbon dioxide 
levels in our atmosphere, global 
temperatures 
may 
become 
irreversible in as soon as 12 
years. Time is running short; 
realistically, how can one of us 
in a sea of 7.6 billion earthlings 
keep the planet from getting 
warmer? We do it one person at 
a time.
Experts offer their opinions 
on whether we should consume 
less or consume smarter. At 
the Society of Environmental 
Journalists conference in Flint, 
Mich., this month, recognized 
experts gathered to discuss how 
to mitigate climate change and 
literally “Cutting the Crap”. Is 
reducing waste or recycling the 
key to cleaning up the world?
We need to truly “figure out 
how to recycle” and keep those 
plastic molecules in play, said 
Tony Kingsbury, founder and 
president of TKingsbury LLC, 
an international sustainability 
and plastics consulting firm 
said at the panel. “The problem 
is that waste is managed at a 
local level, on a city-by-city 
basis,” 
Kingsbury 
explained, 
denouncing 
the 
lack 
of 
standardized recycling policies 
from Ann Arbor to Detroit. 
Further, the material recovery 
facilities we have today were 
predominantly built to handle 
paper and not the plastics we 
consume at astronomical levels. 
“We set up the collection for 
paper… and don’t have the 
infrastructure 
for 
plastics,” 
Kingsbury said. In other words, 
to slow global warming, we 
need to rethink consumption by 
introducing fewer plastics into 
the world, and studying how to 
reuse the “crap” we already have.
On the other hand, Annie 
Leonard, the executive director 
of Greenpeace USA, argued we 
need to target the factories and 
eliminate environmental evils at 
the source. Plastic is practically 
a euphemism for fossil fuel, she 

said, and if we focus all of our 
energy on recycling, dangerous 
toxins will still contaminate 
our environment. The process 
of consumption starts with the 
earth and move from factories to 
homes to landfills, at which point 
it’s too late. As a country, she 
argued, we need to design waste 
out of the system and change 
the demand for products such as 
petroleum, coal and natural gas. 
Recycling can’t keep up with our 
plastic intake where the EPA says 
34.5 million tons were generated 
in 
2015 
alone. 
Instead 
of 
sweeping the problem under the 
rug (to China), Leonard suggests 
we remodel our economic base 
without utilizing fossil fuels; 
fighting fossil fuel extraction 
would stop the expansion of 
single use plastics.
“Only 10 percent of plastics 
get recycled,” Leonard pointed 
out, shining a light on the 
real 
outcomes 
of 
recycling 
campaigns.
I offer my opinion, as well. It 
starts with the people. No matter 
how we do clean up the planet, 
via recycling or redesigning, the 
facts need to be dispersed and 
understood. It is inspiring to 
hear a room of environmental 
professionals discuss the future 
of the world, but now what? What 
about the rest of the country 
— college students, kids in 
elementary school, the ones who 
don’t read the newspaper every 
day? We were kids when schools 
began cutting worksheets in half 
in order to save paper. We are the 
ones who refill water bottles and 
opt to ride bikes instead of cars. 
This is where behavior change 
starts: consumers must become 
aware and use that knowledge to 
act accordingly.
In the 1960s and ’70s, concern 
about the environment spiked 
for the first time, as did the 
desire 
to 
utilize 
reusables 
and 
recyclables. 
However, 
environmental activism was not 
born overnight. One by one, U.S. 
citizens began to recognize what 
we had done to our environment, 
and consequently changed their 
ways. “People start pollution, 
people can stop it” was a popular 
motto of the era, Kingsbury 
said. He says the ’70s gave rise 
to terms like “litterbug,” which 
deflected the responsibility of 
waste from manufacturers to 
consumers.To incite behavior 
change, the people who knew 
the facts took the podium. In 
1976 the EPA published a report 
that outlined the problems of 
pollution. The small set of pages 
was sent around the nation; it 
provided the public with the 

truth and motivation to act. 
The pamphlet explained in the 
’60s, the U.S. was running out of 
water because as the population 
grew, the amount of rain stayed 
the same; the population grew 
from 150 million in 1950 to 
190 million in 1964, and has 
nearly doubled since 1950 as 
we approach 2020. Water use 
per person was also growing, 
the booklet explained. From 
1900 to 1964, individual water 
use had quadrupled, bringing 
total water use as a country to 
about 300 billion gallons per 
day. Showers, lawn sprinklers, 
washing machines and industry 
were a few of the main culprits. 
Water, the essential component 
for everything living on Earth, 
was facing the possibility of a 
shortage.
What was the practical, long-
term answer? According to the 
booklet, the key was reusing 
water and taking political action 
with federal, state and local 
governments. It urged the public 
to ask the right questions and 
seek accurate answers.
This is precisely what our 
campus, town, state and country 
need today: the facts. Did you 
know that our country uses 
more than 322 billion gallons of 
water per day, and Washtenaw 
Country 
uses 
30.3 
million 
gallons per day? Let’s try to use 
less. The U.S. transportation 
sector is responsible for roughly 
30 percent of our country’s 
emissions of greenhouse gases, 
which contribute to climate 
change. 
The 
auto 
industry 
is 
therefore 
headed 
toward 
autonomous, electric cars to 
make the environment “cleaner.” 
What you should know, however, 
is that driverless cars do save 
fuel and reduce greenhouse 
gas emissions, but electric cars 
might not be as clean as we 
think. We can listen to Leonard 
or Kingsbury, or even combine 
both 
of 
their 
arguments; 
however, the truth is some 18 
billion pounds of plastic wind up 
in the ocean each year. We need 
to figure out how to stop that — 
perhaps by consuming less, or 
perhaps by cleaning up what’s 
already out there. We seemingly 
cannot control climate change, 
but the resources and knowledge 
are here, folks. We need to first 
know the facts, since countering 
climate change starts with the 
people.

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A— Monday, October 22, 2018

Emma Chang
Ben Charlson
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Emily Huhman

Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
Lucas Maiman
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger

DAYTON HARE
Managing Editor

420 Maynard St. 
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

ALEXA ST. JOHN
Editor in Chief
 ANU ROY-CHAUDHURY AND 
ASHLEY ZHANG
Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. 
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

ERIK NESLER | COLUMN

Retailer woes
S

ears, the retailer found in 
shopping malls across the U.S. 
and “The Original Everything 
Store,” filed for bankruptcy early in 
the morning Oct. 15. The 125-year-old 
American staple reached a deal with 
lenders that involved closing 142 stores 
by the end of the year. What lies ahead 
for the company is uncertain, but its 
seven-year streak of net losses signal 
that the company may face complete 
liquidation in the foreseeable future.
Liquidation will have overarching 
 
implications for the nearly 70,000 
individuals currently employed by 
Sears. These lives will take a drastic 
turn for the worse when the company 
finally closes all of its doors and these 
individuals find themselves out of 
work. The liquidation will also affect 
over 100,000 pensioners who earned 
that regular income when they once 
worked at the company.
Sears is yet another instance of the 
serious implications that technological 
disruption has had on the retail 
industry. The expansion of online 
shopping, due to the rise of Amazon, 
has had drastic consequences for the 
U.S. economy. 
In the years from 2012 to 2017, 
250,000 department store employees 
found themselves unemployed from 
aggressive 
industry-wide 
layoffs. 
While this statistic is concerning, it’s 
nothing compared to the 6.2 million 
individuals who could find themselves 
without a job in the future thanks to 
intense competition with Amazon.

While technological disruption 
and Amazon is certainly causing 
headaches in the retail industry, many 
retailers struggle with something else: 
Retailers are battling to overcome 
the hefty debt burdens brought on by 
private equity investors.
To illustrate this problem, let’s 
look at Toys R Us, the toy retailer that 
was forced to liquidate in June this 
year. Toys R Us was bought out in 
2005 by the private equity firms Bain 
Capital and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts 
along with the real-estate firm 
Vornado Realty Trust. To purchase 
the company, the private equity 
investors loaded the company with 
debt to minimize risk and boost their 
eventual return.
Bryce Covert detailed the impact 
of this buyout in a piece published 
by The Atlantic. He wrote that 2007 
interest expense (cash that needs to be 
paid every year to creditors) consumed 
97 percent of the company’s operating 
profit. As the company faced fierce 
competition, Toys R Us should have 
used this operating profit to fund 
projects that could have improved 
the company’s performance, like 
upgrading stores or enhancing its 
online presence. Instead, the firm 
was forced to use its capital to pay off 
creditors.
When the Great Recession hit 
and revenue fell, Toys R Us struggled 
to afford its regular interest expenses 
and debt repayments. The debt burden 
hurt the firm’s chances of weathering 

the recession and overcoming the 
challenges posed by the rise of online 
shopping and Amazon.
As it turns out, private equity-
backed retailers that have filed for 
bankruptcy are more common than 
you may expect. In this past year, 
Payless ShoeSource Inc., the shoe 
retailer 
with 
22,000 
employees 
worldwide, and Gymboree, a clothing 
outlet with 11,000 employees, filed for 
bankruptcy. Both companies, along 
with a slew of others, struggle with 
the massive debt burden forced upon 
them by private equity investors. 
FTI Consulting found two-thirds of 
the retailers that filed for Chapter 11 
bankruptcy in 2016 and 2017 were 
backed by private equity.
As retailers struggle to fight back 
against Amazon, their debt burdens 
will put them at a serious disadvantage. 
The combination of these components 
will have major implications for the 
millions of individuals affected and 
the U.S. economy as a whole.
As Amazon grows, retailers will 
increasingly end up like Sears or Toys 
R Us. Amazon needs to recognize 
and manage its immense impact on 
the economy. While the company 
has made progress in providing more 
value to the workforce, like its recent 
decision to raise its minimum wage 
to $15 an hour, the company could be 
doing more.

What to do about the things we cannot control

JULIA MONTAG | COLUMN

Erik Nesler can be reached at 

egnesler@umich.edu

Julia Montag can be reached at 

jtmont@umich.edu.

MARISA WRIGHT | COLUMN

The power of women’s rage
Y

ou probably did not learn it in 
history class growing up. You 
probably did not learn it in any 
books. You probably have never even 
thought about. You still may not even 
know it. But, you should.
What you probably don’t know 
is that women’s rage has been at the 
root of almost every social change 
movement 
since 
this 
country’s 
founding. We are taught mostly of 
the patriotic and heroic anger of men 
in our history class. We learn of the 
virtuous, masculine anger fueling 
the rebellions and revolts that won us 
our independence. We revere those 
men that dumped tea into the Boston 
Harbor in an ultimate act of resistance 
to tyrannical taxation. We honor the 
men who bravely endured the walk 
across the Edmund Pettus bridge in 
Selma, Alabama. We empathize with 
the men who refused, even at the risk 
of arrest, to be drafted to serve in the 
Vietnam War.
Yet, we never learn of the 
indispensable women at the heart of 
many of these movements. We are 
not taught the names of the women in 
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating 
Committee who demanded equal 
opportunity and treatment in a 
movement based on equal rights. 
We are not taught the names of the 
women in the Young Lords Party 
who performed the labor of teaching 
the male leaders of their party the 
harmful impact of their machismo-
based actions. Even though Black 
Lives Matter is only four years old, we 
are not taught the names of the three 
women whose activism and refusal 
to be silenced founded this powerful 
and well-known movement. While we 
might learn of the women’s suffrage 
movement of the early 20th century 

in passing, it is seldom pointed out 
how it only guaranteed white women 
the right to vote or how many of the 
women recognized as leaders of those 
movements held shameful white 
supremacist attitudes.
Even worse than those who 
are assigned the task of teaching 
us everything we do not know 
gatekeeping crucial historical facts, 
children, by preschool age, are taught 
that boys can freely express their 
anger while girls must suppress theirs. 
In academic and professional settings, 
women and girls are disdained, or 
even punished, for expressing anger 
or discontent with any sort of gender-
based oppression.
This type of penalty is experienced 
by women of all kinds, from celebrities 
to regular citizens. Tennis star Serena 
Williams is routinely punished for 
her expression of rage, which was 
evident at the U.S. Open earlier this 
year when a male referee took away a 
whole game after Williams demanded 
an apology for his botched call earlier 
in the match, ordinary women also 
experience decreased status and 
perceived incompetence versus male 
employees who are more likely to 
be hired and given more power and 
autonomy in their jobs when they 
express anger.
It is also important to note that 
women of color, and Black women in 
particular, face additional abuse at the 
hands of white men when they express 
their ire. The stereotype of the angry 
Black woman, and the subsequent 
treatment of their anger as irrational, 
reinforces racist practices that often 
lead to harsher consequences than 
white women face.
Still, despite all of the attempted 
stymying of women and their anger, 

women have been raging since the 
dawn of time. If you are inclined to 
the Christian story of human origin, 
you might want to consider how 
Eve’s rebellious consumption from 
the tree of knowledge was fueled by 
her displeasure for the ignorance 
enforced upon her by God. If you are 
not, all you have to do is read a book or 
study some history, albeit not the same 
selective history you were probably 
taught in school, to understand how 
instrumental women and their rage 
were and are to progress.
Not sure where to start? There 
are two books that offer the best 
history and analysis of women’s rage: 
“Good and Mad: The Revolutionary 
Power of Women’s Anger” by Rebecca 
Traister and “Rage Becomes Her: The 
Power of Women’s Anger by Soraya 
Chemaly. Once you have learned the 
value of women’s rage from those two 
brilliant books, ladies: let your rage out; 
men: listen to and support our rage. 
While doctors and medical websites 
are clear that bottling up anger can 
have health implications, such as 
stress and anxiety, it is also the male 
response to women’s anger, calling 
outspoken women “crazy bitches” 
or undermining them with claims of 
overreaction, that induces even more 
stress and frustration, ultimately 
leading women to hold it in even more 
for fear of repudiation and further the 
damage on their health.

Marisa Wright can be reached at 

marisadw@umich.edu

KENDALL HECKER | COLUMN

Eat your vegetables
M

y family isn’t big on 
birthday presents. Most 
years I get a nice sweater, 
wool socks to replace those I have 
worn through and a homemade cake. 
So I was surprised on my 18th birthday 
when my mom, straining from the 
weight, handed me a massive box 
wrapped in red paper. I tore it open to 
find a bright white KitchenAid mixer, 
with three paddle attachments and 
a big silver bowl. I suspect most 18 
year olds would only be so excited to 
receive a kitchen appliance to celebrate 
their first year of legal adulthood. I, 
however, was ecstatic. 
Since middle school, I have loved 
to bake. I love the creativity of it. I 
love concocting new recipes in my 
head, the feeling of flour on my fingers 
and that sore ache in my arms after 
kneading dough or whipping egg 
whites. I love making a cheeky little 
piece of goodness. I love getting to lick 
the spoon.
Most special to me, though, was 
how my baking made others feel. 
It became tradition that I made a 
birthday cake for each of my friends, 
and I enjoyed making them feel worth 
all the time it took to decorate. I loved 
baking fudgy brownies to make 
studying for AP exams a little more 
bearable for my friends. I reveled in the 
look on people’s faces when I walked 
into the room with my signature red-
topped tupperware, and how they all 
gathered around to wait for me to lift 
the lid and reveal whatever heaven I 
had whipped up for that day.
Baking was also a ploy to make 
myself likable. I figured out early on 
in my baking career that bringing 
cupcakes to class was a great way 
to get on everyone’s good side, and I 
became very comfortable living there. 
It made interacting with others feel 
safer, as though I already knew their 
evaluation of me would come out as 
a net positive. I never wanted any 

trouble, I didn’t want to step on any 
toes and I never wanted to be worse 
than neutral in someone’s eyes. People 
tend not to take issue with you when 
they associate you with dessert, and 
my irksome craving to be liked kept 
my kitchen busy.
“I make smiles with a big silver 
bowl” is the first line of a poem I started 
when I was 17 but never finished. It still 
conjures for me the feeling of cradling a 
mixing bowl in the crook of my arm as 
I slide a silicon spatula around its edges 
with a practiced twirl. It is a nostalgic 
feeling — I don’t have the same time, 
space or energy to cook in college as I 
did in high school. I also don’t have as 
much time for the sentiment. Though 
appeasing others remains my instinct, 
I work hard to convince myself that it 
is neither necessary or healthy. There 
are arguments to make, policies to 
propose and national political battles 
to be fought, and none of them will 
be solved with fudge (actually, I 
would argue that my chili-chocolate 
fudge could probably go a long way to 
mitigate national conflicts, but you get 
my point).
I have always fled from conflict. 
I joke with friends that choosing 
a major like public policy, where 
every essay and assignment means 
choosing a side on a divisive topic, 
was a somewhat masochistic choice. 
Disagreements make me squirm. 
Serious confrontation is like torture.
However, in my adventures down 
the rabbit hole of modern politics, I’ve 
found that there are certain conflicts 
that don’t make me want to run and 
hide. I will happily do battle for a 
woman’s right to choose. Immigration 
reform and immigrants’ rights? I’ll 
confront you ten ways to Sunday. 
Policies that disenfranchise minority 
voters? Debate me, I dare you.
Passion shuts up my inner 
peacemaker. I have come to see the 
part of myself that replaces conflict 

with cookies as this older woman 
who just wants everyone to sit down 
for some tea and chat about “This Is 
Us.” Turns out, though, that she lived 
through the ‘60s and burned her fair 
share of bras and marched in her fair 
share of protests. She fights her own 
battles, she just also loves pie.
Conflict is certainly not something 
I seek out, but I have come to realize 
how important it is to be willing to 
disagree with someone, both for myself 
and for the nation in this particularly 
divisive time when national values 
formerly deemed intrinsic have been 
called into question. Respectful debate 
and argument are valuable and help 
us grow and learn. Positive conflict 
can be like eating your vegetables. It’s 
not everyone’s favorite thing, but it 
makes you stronger and better, and it’s 
unhealthy to avoid it completely.
I love to bake. I love the warm 
comfort of making something that 
will make someone else content for a 
moment. But a growing young woman 
needs more than just pleasantries and 
chocolate. She needs to be challenged 
and pushed. She needs to learn to 
construct a valid argument, to engage 
with the world around her and be 
willing to fight for something she 
believes in, even if it means finally 
suggesting to her roomates that they 
clean their dirty dishes in the sink.
I’ll always make smiles with my 
big silver bowl. But from now on when 
I find the precious time to slip on my 
apron and roll up my sleeves, I will 
try to do it for myself and not to avoid 
an interaction that could encourage 
me to grow. A balanced meal can be 
difficult to come across in college, but 
we should all try to remember to eat 
our vegetables before we get around 
to dessert.

Kendall Hecker can be reached at 

kfhecker@umich.edu

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