New updated Article on event

[Apollonaris Zeus]

http://stopglobalwarming.msn.com/articl ... id=5346916

Greening ManAnnual festival of radical self-expression goes green
By Kate Sheppard
Each year, some 40,000 artists, techies, free spirits and innovators descend upon a former lake bed in the Nevada desert for one week, building from nothing a city that will be their home for the week. They'll eat, sleep, play, build and create here, and after the week is over, vanish back into their everyday lives, leaving not a trace of their city behind. Oh, and they will burn the effigy of a giant man.

But this year at Burning Man, they're going green — right down to the Man himself.

This year's theme is "Green," representing an exploration of mankind's relationship to nature. From encouraging "burners" to offset their travel, to running the generators on biodiesel, to composting coffee grounds and feeding compost to a 120-foot-long mechanical slug that converts it into fuel, the green theme this year is all-encompassing.

Burners travel from all over to build Black Rock City — complete with buildings, roads and an official U.S. Post Office — from the bottom up each year, bringing with them all the supplies they need to eat, sleep and party for the week. The city is built around a giant effigy that is roasted at the end of the week. This year, the Man's pyre will be made with wood reclaimed from a development site in Reno, and the approximately 100 tons of carbon dioxide emissions that come from torching him will be offset — all part of a wider effort to reduce the overall impact of the event.

Burning down the house
Burners call the desert the playa, and on the playa, there are only a few rules: You can't buy or sell anything (except for coffee, tea and ice), and you must leave no trace behind when you depart. Burners note that this year's greening is the first major change in 10 years, and that the last was the institution of the "Leave No Trace" policy in 1998, the year that the phrase was also their theme. It was the first year they actually had a theme — and it came about because the Bureau of Land Management threatened to revoke their permit if they didn't adhere to conservation policies.

Since then, "Leave No Trace" has become central to the event, and burners have gotten much better at cleaning up after themselves. But despite the advances, the very premise of building a city in the desert for one week each year, torching a giant effigy, then tearing it all down is inherently unsustainable. But from challenge comes innovation.

"For a number of years, a lot of burners who come out here to do this love the event and love all the installations and love all the art, but they are aware that this is a nonproductive use of resources," says Jeff Cole, co-founder of CoolingMan, one of the groups working to green the event. "The environmental impacts have bothered a segment of this community for a number of years."

This inspired Cole and David Shearer to start CoolingMan, an organization that has calculated the total emissions of the event and is working with organizers and attendees to reduce the impacts of their week in the desert upfront and through carbon offsets.

On the playa
Another burner hard at work on greening is Jenn Breckenridge, coordinator of the Burn Clean Project, which is running a biodiesel bus back and forth between the playa and the Reno airport. Though cars are banned on the playa, most burners rent them to drive back and forth from the airport, which accounts for a large portion of the emissions associated with the event. In its pilot year, the shuttle will ferry 180 burners, but in the future, Breckenridge hopes everyone will shun personal transport in favor of something greener — a shuttle, carpool, bike, or a nice long walk.

"Just get there without burning [anything] that had to travel all the way from the Middle East," says Breckenridge.

Another green development this year is a fleet of 1,000 new bikes, donated by an Internet mogul. The bikes will be stationed around the playa and used to get from one part of town to the other.

Breckenridge was also part of the movement to get biodiesel into the on-site generators that power the event (since it's in the middle of the desert and there aren't any electrical lines). Last year, Burn Clean Project used 3,600 gallons of biodiesel; this year, the organization has upped it to 40,000 gallons and is running 87 percent of the generators on 100-percent biofuel. By 2010, Burn Clean Project aims to make the event 95-percent fossil fuel–free.

Burning Man is also trying to minimize all the waste the event generates. Festival-goers have to carry in their own supplies and carry out their trash, but for the first time this year, the festival will be providing on-site recycling and composting. The carry-in, carry-out policy helps make people aware of their consumption, says Tom Price, who is serving as the festival's environmental manager, a new position created this year.

"Out in the rest of the world, we buy stuff, we throw stuff away, it disappears," says Price. "Here, if you make trash, it's at your feet. If you burn energy, you're breathing the exhaust. You become immediately aware of your impact."

Bringing ideas to life
Guided by this year's green theme, burners will share, create and collaborate on new solutions to real-world issues like climate change through speakers, films, demonstrations, art projects and volunteer opportunities. There will be demonstrations about carbon-dioxide-eating algae and gasifying organic matter.

"It's really an opportunity to educate 40,000 people about the issues around the environment and what they can do to make a difference," says Shearer, "because it's one thing to point out the problems, but we're a big believer in providing solution sets."

One of this year's biggest projects is designing, building and installing a 120-kilowatt solar array in the nearby town of Gerlach, and a second 60-kilowatt array in Lovelock. The arrays will be created by volunteers and then given away to the cities, which is part of the gift-giving ethos of Burning Man.

Festival-goers will also help maintain nearby trails with Earth Guardians, another organization working to green Burning Man, and others will work with the group Burners Without Borders, which plans to gather 10 semitrucks full of lumber when the city is demolished and donate the wood to Habitat for Humanity. Ten years ago, all that lumber would have just been pushed into a giant pile and torched, says Price.

But having realized the error of their ways, burners have kicked into high gear to make Black Rock City one of the most sustainable — albeit temporary — places in the country. Not only will burners take those experiences back with them to their normal lives, but the rest of the world will be able to draw from what was created there, says Price.

"If we can do it here, there's no excuse for not doing it back home."



Useful Links:

Burning Man environment page
http://www.burningman.com/environment/

CoolingMan
http://www.coolingman.org

Burn Clean Project
http://www.burncleanproject.org/

Earth Guardians
http://earthguardians.burningman.com/

Burners Without Boarders
http://www.burnerswithoutborders.org/