MSU Sunrise talks divestment, environment injustice

This Tuesday, Michigan State Universitys Sunrise Hub hosted a Divestment Teach-In and welcomed guest speakers to discuss environmental injustice and divestment.

Jakob Levengood of the Sunrise MSU Core Team Divestment explained to us that divestment of fossil fuels is the “stopping of investment in companies that directly engage in or profit from the transportation, refinement, and distribution fossil fuels.”

This means that Michigan State University will eliminate millions of dollars of financial support to companies like Enbridge, which have a long history in polluting our state, and irreparably destroying our environment.

Assistant Professor Daniel B. Ahlquist, James Madison College, was one of the featured guests speakers. He shared similar concerns.

Yes, exiting our investment into the fossil fuel industry could lead to short-term financial sanctions, he stated. But, knowing what we know, how do we justify dragging our feet on worries about short-term losses of a fraction of one percent of our four billion-dollar endowment.

They spoke about March 18, 2019, when nine chemical tank fires erupted near Deer Park in Texas.

Jessica Diaz, a founder member of the MSU Sunrise Hub, stated that this was all over her social media. She is a first-generation Mexican American and grew up in Houston, Texas, in a frontline community.

I am always asking myself, every day, if this is the day that I wake-up and see a headline similar to this but about my local community. Diaz said. “I believe that no student at MSU should be uncomfortable with the fact MSU is complicit to the pollution and toxicity of the explosion, all of the health effects that communities such as mine are experiencing every moment.”

She believes all people and all communities have the right to equal protection and enforcement for environmental laws and regulations. If movements work with frontline communities that are affected by environmental abuse, divestment will only be successful.

Hazel Anderson, a first-year Ph.D. student in Integrative Biology and the Ecology, Evolution and Behavior Program, stated that the average temperature is increasing, ocean acidification, rise in sea levels, drought, flooding, and other extreme weather events. The temperatures in Michigan have increased by just a little more than two degrees Fahrenheit over the past decade and are expected to rise even further by the end of this century.

Sunrise MSUs has launched a divestment campaign asking the MSU Board of Trustees for immediate termination of all current investments in companies profiting from fossil fuels. Levengood also asked for a commitment to stop future investments in these companies.

He said that lake levels will decrease and that more rainstorms are likely to occur in the summer months. These longer summers will lead to more dead zones in the Great Lakes. This will have a cascading effect upon the ecosystems and species within the region.

Ahlquist said that we are one the largest universities in the nation.