Opinion
JENNA SCHEEN | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT JSCHEEN@UMICH.EDU
Wednesday, November 4, 2020 — 8
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
A
fter the stay-in-place order
went into effect Oct. 20,
the University of Michigan
made the New York Times. The
“Leaders and Best” had contributed
to a full-on outbreak of COVID-
19 in Washtenaw County, and
the undergraduate students were
potentially to blame.
University
President
Mark
Schlissel tried last week to completely
absolve himself and the rest of the
University administration of blame
for the outbreak. I’m not surprised
by the University’s unwillingness
to admit responsibility for their
failed reopening plans. According to
them, it’s neither the lack of testing
and contact tracing nor the lack of
enforcement of the arbitrary rules
that they have created. It’s our — the
undergraduates’ — fault, the same
students who will end up paying
hundreds of thousands of dollars to a
university that doesn’t care.
When the Graduate Employees’
Organization
went
on
strike
because the University refused to
meet any of its demands, it was the
students who suffered, graduate
and undergraduate alike, when our
classes were canceled. Once again,
this stay-in-place order hurts the
undergrads academically as our few
remaining in-person classes have
been moved entirely online.
While undergrads acknowledge
that we hold a lot of the responsibility
for spreading the virus, it was
the University that put us into an
environment where we could not
thrive or make the right decisions.
Speaking anecdotally, I’ve suffered
Zoom fatigue from weeks’ worth
of virtual classes, constant stress
over looming assignments and a
frequent loss of focus after staring at
my computer for hours. I’m sure I’m
not alone in saying that I’ve made
risky decisions to hang out with
friends because I needed the social
interaction to sustain my mental
health.
The University has exempted
student-athletes from the stay-
in-place order because of their
low percentage of positive cases.
This is obviously because student-
athletes
are
routinely
tested
asymptomatically. It is clear where
the priorities of this administration
lie — in the students that they can
profit off of. If they can test our
athletes, they can test the rest of our
students.
Other universities of similar
capacity, like the University of
Illinois, have tested their students
twice weekly since the start of school.
If one can diagnose and monitor
cases before they have a chance
to infect others, the magnitude of
community spread will be lower, as
we have seen in student-athletes
here at the University. As the
best research institution in the
country, it is embarrassing, to say
the least, that only a small fraction
of the student body has had access
to asymptomatic testing.
I love my school because
of
my
supportive
Graduate
Student Instructors and amazing
professors, and it’s whereI’ve
met some of my very best friends.
We are not the ones failing the
University — the administration,
specifically Schlissel, has failed
us. We grew up in the wake of
9/11, the rise of school shootings
and now, we are living through a
pandemic.
Standing up to this University’s
administration isn’t going to
intimidate us. It’s time to be vocal.
Tell your professors how you feel.
Contact Provost Susan M. Collins
expressing your concern. We are
past due for real, lasting change
from the top down. Schlissel
needs to go before his lack of
leadership
and
incompetence
drag us down with him.
SOFIA TERENZIO | OP-ED
Who is really to blame for the outbreak?
W
hen
I
went
to
Traverse City, Mich.,
this past March to
visit my grandparents, I was
amazed by the beauty of Old
Mission Peninsula. The green
and orange leaves of the apple
and cherry orchards line a
landscape of rolling hills that
provided me with a 360-degree
view of Grand Traverse Bay.
Rustic,
red
farmhouses
and
19th century cottages made the
landscape even more idyllic. The
Old Mission Lighthouse that sits
at the tip of the peninsula gave
me a view of Lake Michigan
that stretched over the horizon.
Few places, outside of national
parks, have such awe-inspiring
vistas. Dotting the yards of the
homes lying on the lakefront, a
bright green yard-sign managed
to draw my attention away from
the sweeping sight. The sign
called for an end to the Line 5 oil
pipeline, which transports crude
oil through Michigan and into
Canada: a topic I had heard about
enough in my classes to have
formed a knowledgeable opinion.
Run by Enbridge Inc., this
pipeline has already leaked up
to a million gallons of oil into
the Kalamazoo River in 2010.
The section of the pipeline that
worries the citizens of the Grand
Traverse Bay area is located on
the floor of Lake Michigan as it
snakes its way across the straits
of Mackinac. Due to repeated
damage from anchoring vessels
in recent years and the risk of
a disastrous oil spill, there has
been a push to shut down the
pipeline. This reached a fever
pitch soon after my trip, when
Attorney General Dana Nessel
filed a motion to shut down the
pipeline, continuing a years-
long battle between Michigan
and Enbridge. This challenge
is just another example of the
widespread pushback that often
confronts oil pipelines and the
risks that come with them.
Opposition against pipelines
has taken various forms, with
northern Michiganders being
able to express their will using
political
influence.
Tribal
nations standing against the
Dakota Access Pipeline have
faced physical violence in their
fight against pollution. Police
even shot protestors with water
cannons to induce hypothermia
on freezing nights. People do not
want rivers of oil running through
their
communities,
despite
pipelines actually being the safest
method of oil transportation,
because no matter which form
oil is moved in, it will always
threaten our environment and
our communities. Even so, the
worrisome effects of pipelines
pale in comparison to the deadly
consequences of their railway
alternative.
In 1951, deep under the
plains of North Dakota, over 18
billion barrels’ worth of crude
oil was discovered. Unable to
extract it due to technology
limitations, these Bakken shale
oil fields sat dormant for the
remainder of the century. In
2008, however, a new method
of drilling, hydraulic fracking,
allowed the once inaccessible
oil
to
be
extracted
with
relative ease. This sparked
the “North Dakota Oil Boom”
which made North Dakota the
second largest oil producer in
the United States by 2015. Oil
companies decided to use the
nation’s railways to transport
the immense amount of crude
oil being extracted to coastal
refineries — in 2008, there
were 9,500 rail cars moving
crude oil, and by 2014 there
were over 400,000.
DOT-11 tanker cars, many
developed to transport corn
syrup,
were
often
loaded
full of thousands of gallons
of highly flammable crude
oil
and
shipped
through
American cities. With such
a rapid acceleration in the
usage of this new means of oil
transportation, little oversight
was applied to the dubious
practice. Overall, derailments
of these tankers have caused
over 3,272 evacuations, spilled
almost
2.8
million
gallons
of oil and cost an estimated
$45 million in damages and
cleanup. Oil train derailments,
however, can have even more
deadly
consequences,
as
it
is not only a risky way to
transport the material, but
also utilizes trains which are
not designed for products this
flammable. When a tanker is
breached, massive fire spouts
erupt that burn for days and often
ignite the other tanks around
them in a fiery chain reaction.
The explosive potential of this
concoction of natural gas and oil
parallels even the most brutal
weapons of war.
On a late summer night in
2013, 72 DOT-11 tank cars filled
with Bakken shale oil derailed
in the center of the city of Lac-
Megantic, Canada, exhibiting
this destructive potential. A
crowded bar was pulverized
instantly by the blast as 27 tank
cars ran off the tracks at around
60 miles per hour, killing 47
people. The city was consumed
by this inferno for days as
firefighters waited helplessly for
the oil to finish burning. The loss
of 100,000 liters of oil into local
rivers also left a toxic aftermath
that is still confronting the town
to this day.
While this pushed Canada’s
government to pass regulations
regulating DOT-11 tank cars,
these cars are still allowed to
travel throughout the U.S. with
no extra safety precautions until
2023. The black tanker cars
that stream into many major
American cities on a daily basis,
from Chicago to Omaha, Neb., are
disasters waiting to happen. Oil
transportation providing a wide
variety of unsavory and deadly
consequences is yet another reason
that our dependency on fossil fuels
must be curbed.
When I made my way into
downtown Ann Arbor after my
trip to Old Mission Peninsula,
I saw a line of black oil tankers
sitting on the railroad tracks
near the Big House. I wondered,
if the people of Ann Arbor knew
about the potential infernos being
shipped through town, would they
too have yard signs calling for their
banning? With each tanker capable
of causing massive explosions in
any of the cities they roll through,
some of America’s most densely
populated cities are at risk of
a
fiery,
industrial
disaster.
While railroad companies and
Republican legislators may be
fine with hoping for the best
until 2023, with the string of bad
luck this new decade has already
wrought, that’s not a bet I would
like to take.
RILEY DEHR | COLUMN
The bomb in your backyard
Riley Dehr can be reached at
rdehr@umich.edu.
Sofia Terenzio is a sophomore
in the College of Literature, Science
& the Arts and can be reached at
terenzio@umich.edu.
ALEXANDER NOBEL | COLUMN
Last line of defense
A
s we have seen out west
and on the Gulf Coast,
the effects of climate
change are already impacting
our everyday lives. As forest fires,
hurricanes and other climate-
related disasters become more
frequent, the likelihood of the
government being able to help
local
communities
decreases
exponentially. We have already
seen governments fail to protect
their
citizens
during
major
hurricanes and in major health
crises throughout the COVID-
19 pandemic. When a crisis
occurs and governments are
nowhere to be found, it is up to
each community to organize
itself in order to survive. Climate
change makes it more likely that
a disaster will strike in your area,
but a strong community can
withstand any crisis.
In late October of 2012, walking
around my neighborhood of Red
Hook, Brooklyn in New York City
felt surreal. Stores and houses
were boarded up. Fallen trees lay
across streets and on electrical
wires. There was a boat in the
middle of a road. Soaked books
and clothes littered the sidewalks.
Hurricane Sandy had devastated
the area, killing 48 and causing
more than $70 billion in damages,
and the small neighborhood of
Red Hook in South Brooklyn was
one of the hardest hit. With its long
coastline on New York Harbor
and its low elevation, much of the
neighborhood was flooded. Red
Hook residents were left with
nothing, particularly those living
in public housing, who were left
without heat for the winter. Both
city and state governments were
slow to aid those who needed it
most, leaving communities to
fend for themselves.
Following
the
breakup
of
Occupy Wall Street, a protest
movement
against
growing
income inequality, participants
reconvened for a new mission.
A group, Occupy Sandy, set up
distribution hubs to allocate food
and equipment and organized
teams to clear debris and clean out
neighbors’ basements. In a time of
chaos and uncertainty, it was the
strength of the community that
brought the residents out of the
crisis — without any help from the
government.
This same sense of community
self-sufficiency was seen in New
Orleans during the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina. Scott Crow,
an anarchist organizer from
Texas, went to New Orleans
to look for his friend, whom
he hadn’t heard from since the
storm hit. He was dumbfounded
by the lack of aid from the local,
state and federal governments.
Last year on a podcast, Crow said
that he “saw the inefficiency of
capitalism or governments in
general, but (he) also saw the
inefficiency of corporations to
do anything about this,” leaving
people with no choice but to fend
for themselves.
This prompted Crow, along
with his friend and former Black
Panther, Robert King, and a
small group of locals to begin
organizing to provide neighbors
with food, health care, shelter
and community defense. The
community organizing expanded
— and turned into something
quite different than the usual
post-disaster intervention. Crow
said that his group wanted to
“not just [try] to provide charity
and support for people in that
way that everyone does because
everyone could see that there
was a disaster … we wanted to use
it as a pivoting point to rebuild
neighborhoods block by block,
neighborhood by neighborhood.
Not in our image but in the image
of what the people want.”
The
organization
became
known as the Common Ground
Collective
and
adopted
the
inspiring
slogan
“solidarity
not charity” in an attempt to
emphasize its nonhierarchical,
community-led structure. When
New Orleans citizens needed
their government most, it was
nowhere to be found — it was
rather the community, catalyzed
by Crow and his group, that
uplifted those who most needed
help in the middle of a disaster.
The
COVID-19
pandemic
has taken the lives of more
than 220,000 Americans while
devastating the economy and
leaving millions jobless, once
again
putting
pressure
on
community organizing. In our
backyard
in
Michigan,
local
organizers in Ann Arbor and
Ypsilanti launched Washtenaw
County Mutual Aid. Beginning in
March, this group grew to more
than 4,000 members helping with
food distribution, rent payments
and running errands for those
who are immunocompromised.
The
mutual
aid
network
complemented
existing
aid
organizations
and
structures,
bringing them together and
making it easier for those who
were struggling to find help.
While
Washtenaw
County
Mutual Aid no longer exists,
there are still ways to help others
in our community. As hundreds
of students test positive for
COVID-19,
myself
included,
the question of mutual aid is no
longer abstract or some historical
curiosity. This is something that
we should do for each other right
now. If you’re sick, take care of
yourself, but if you’re healthy
take care of your community
while still following the stay-in-
place order guidelines. Offer to
run to the grocery store and leave
food on a friend’s porch. People
are feeling isolated and scared, so
check in on your friends and offer
them support. In short, be there
for each other. We must follow
the experts and trust science,
but we must also organize and
strengthen
our
communities
because, in the end, nobody is
coming to save us.
Alexander Nobel can be reached
at anobel@umich.edu.
ZOE ZHANG | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT ZOEZHANG@UMICH.EDU