future of burning man?

[mumblemouth]

Interesting read if true. http://examiner.com.co/nevada-epa-consi ... -man-2015/

[tamarakay]

Read the news ticker at the top. A clue or two there.

[drop_bear]

2/10. Try harder.

[Just_Joe]

Read the news ticker at the top. A clue or two there.

Ya. I had no idea that President's Day was being replaced with "Hug A Muslim" day
I need to stay away from mainstream media and get out there too lern more.

[stephen2u]

The E.P.A. is a dictatorship and they do what they want. you can not throw money at it it will not work , if they want to do this, they will do it.In November 2014 the House Passes a Bill that Prohibits Expert Scientific Advice to the EPA they are Gods there. They do what they want.

[Roundabout]

The E.P.A. is a dictatorship and they do what they want. you can not throw money at it it will not work , if they want to do this, they will do it.In November 2014 the House Passes a Bill that Prohibits Expert Scientific Advice to the EPA they are Gods there. They do what they want.

Conflated and confused logic.

[AntiM]

Moderator note: moved to Philosophy and Politics as that is a better fit than Preparation.

[Ugly Dougly]

http://nationalreport.net/nevada-epa-co ... -man-2015/

[stephen2u]

[stephen2u]

I make 8,110 lbs per year of Co2e greenhouse gas from my mini copper. I did not know burning man made 50,000 tons of greenhouse gas, that would be 110,230,000 lbs that's is huge.

[ygmir]

I make 8,110 lbs per year of Co2e greenhouse gas from my mini copper. I did not know burning man made 50,000 tons of greenhouse gas, that would be 110,230,000 lbs that's is huge.

huge? well, in relative terms, spread out over 70K people? then again, compare that, once per year, to any volcano erupting, undersea vents, the automobiles just in one city, forest fires, .....well, a drop of water, is still a drop of water, but when it's dripped into the the ocean, relativity kicks in........

[trilobyte]

If I recall the Environmental Assessment study from a few years ago, the calculated carbon emissions from Burning Man (which calculated not only the footprint from burns, but also the output from the vehicles and estimated that from generators as well) put it well below the carbon emissions from a city of its size and population. If you're interested, you could probably find a link to that lengthy study (I recall it being in excess of 300 pages) without too much digging around. It was a dry read, but had a lot of fascinating details.

[some seeing eye]

http://www.coolingman.org/learn_more/bu ... mpact.html

The man, made of wood, is carbon neutral. The fossil fuels are not.

As for the EPA, they work years in advance with public and special interest involvement in every move. The media is late to the party.

[ygmir]

http://www.coolingman.org/learn_more/bu ... mpact.html

The man, made of wood, is carbon neutral. The fossil fuels are not.

As for the EPA, they work years in advance with public and special interest involvement in every move. The media is late to the party.

why is wood carbon neutral
, and fossil fuel not?

[stephen2u]

I don't get it“The idea of major restrictions is never popular among attendees, however none of said attendees can dispute the positive impact the restrictions would have on the estimated 50,000 tons of greenhouse gases produced at thefestival each year.” Is it at the festival or for the festival? Is the EPA just making a big deal about nothing to get more money?

[trilobyte]

I know that some argue that properly harvested wood is considered carbon neutral, but for the purposes of the environmental assessment from a few years back they included all sources in calculating the carbon footprint of the event.

[some seeing eye]

Good question! Biomass is considered carbon neutral because the plants took current era CO2 out of the atmosphere. The plants forming fossil fuels took it out of the atmosphere over millions of years.

The original article for this thread is fictional humor, not news (much of which is fictional humor too!)

[ygmir]

ah, but both having taken their carbon out of the atmosphere, it's just a scale of time then, no?
is releasing the carbon from a 100 year old tree different than the carbon from 2mil. year old oil?

[some seeing eye]

It's not how long ago the fossil fuels were formed. It is that they took hundreds of millions of years of plant life to create and we will release it back into the atmosphere in 200 years.

[Rice]

Here is the link to that 343 page Environmental Assessment from June 2012: https://www.blm.gov/epl-front-office/pr ... nal_EA.pdf

Finding of NO Significant Impact : https://www.blm.gov/epl-front-office/pr ... ng_Man.pdf

Found at the following location in the BLM Website: http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/wfo/blm_ ... g_man.html

[trilobyte]

That's the one. It's as long and tedious as you might think a 300+ page assessment study might be, but I thought it had a lot of fascinating info.

[Lonesomebri]

Each year, every member of the Burning man community should be required to bring a length of lumber taken from the structure of their own home or apartment to the event. This wood could then be used to construct The Man. This would truly be carbon footprint neutral, as no additional wood is logged for The Man. I believe I read an article about this in Scientific Weekly.

[digital]

Maybe they should just cancel the event all together. That way people upset over tickets would be happy. People upset over environmental impact would be happy. People upset over the BOD and finances would be happy. Honestly, I don't know how they put up with the naysayers for so many years. Weaker people would have crumbled years ago.

[Aurelia]

YAY !
you got it Digi

I kept hoping you or someone like bri would chime in

sit on it dear ones and enjoy this life force of our own making

xoA.

[Lonesomebri]

Maybe they should just cancel the event all together. That way people upset over tickets would be happy. People upset over environmental impact would be happy. People upset over the BOD and finances would be happy. Honestly, I don't know how they put up with the naysayers for so many years. Weaker people would have crumbled years ago.

First they ban the complainers, then they ban the fire.
The "they" that "put up with naysayers" probably get something out of the event for themselves, shock!!!!!!!!, and realize that fact, instead of having a put-upon victim/martyr mentality. But it's good somebody is sympathetic to their long non-suffering. All movement is a complaint against the status quo, and the nature of reality is movement, change. In human society and nature this requires human dissatisfaction with how things are. I'm pretty sure that everyone being happy is never going to happen, anywhere, ever, but we each have our own interpretation of how stuff works. Maybe is everyone should just shut-up and follow the orders of the people who do the real work at Black Rock City, then at least some people would be happy.

Wasn't this event started with some guy making a symbolic complaint against a failed romance or something? Damn complainers, ruining everything.

[digital]

Wasn't this event started with some guy making a symbolic complaint against a failed romance or something? Damn complainers, ruining everything.

FWIW, the symbolic burning of an effigy goes back many, many years. Way before Harvey found himself on a beach.
Something to do with appreciation of life. Not complaining about it.
Or something like that.

[5280MeV]

I did not know burning man made 50,000 tons of greenhouse gas, that would be 110,230,000 lbs that's is huge.

Wood creates approximately twice its mass in CO2 when burned. Unless the man actually weighs over 25,000 tons, it doesn't produce that much CO2. The Eiffel tower only weighs 7300 tons.

We have these conversations in the regionals I participate in and it drives me nuts. Having a giant bonfire is insignificant compared to the CO2 production involved in everyone simply driving to said bonfire.

I can't find numbers for last year's man - but from various blog posts from John Curley I see that the head weighed 3400 lbs and the legs weigh "tens of thousands of pounds each". So I think that 300,000 lbs or 150 tons is a reasonable upper bound for the weight of the wood that comprises the man. So burning the man can only produce on the order of 300 tons of CO2.

One gallon of gas produces 20 lbs of CO2 when burned. The amount of gas used by the average burner probably varies quite a bit. While I am sure that some burners pack into a Prius and come from Reno, others fly across the Atlantic or come in giant RVs. I think that it is safe to say that the average burner uses at least 10 gallons of fuel to get to the event and back. Then just to drive to the event burners produce at least 7000 tons of CO2, or over 20 times the amount produced by burning the man.

Each year, every member of the Burning man community should be required to bring a length of lumber taken from the structure of their own home or apartment to the event.

In principle recycling is a good idea, but for burning wood you really want to make sure that your wood is all untreated and not otherwise coated or processed. Burning treated wood is illegal in most states and for very good reason - it has very nasty chemicals.

I think that the best thing to do if building a structure to be burned is to spend extra and ask around for responsibly harvested and sourced lumber. Assuming that the forests are being maintained properly, the wood is part of a closed carbon cycle. The CO2 released by the burned wood is being recaptured by the growing saplings to produce more wood. In my experience, albeit with very small (10-20 foot) sculptures, the cost of transportation is generally larger than the cost of lumber, so it doesn't add much to the overhead of the project to try and source responsible lumber.


Now if we really want to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions from the event by banning things, the best thing to ban by far would be beef. The production of beef is an environmental nightmare, so having a neighborhood cookout and grilling hamburgers is much worse in terms of CO2 production than making large wooden sculptures and setting them on fire (I am not joking).

[some seeing eye]

70K participants contribute maybe 3500 Tons of CO2 in their eating (farting neglected), but they would probably be eating the same back home.
Proving bacon trumps pastrami...

[Lonesomebri]

Future of Burning Man-
http://bit.ly/1AMLi2A

[stephen2u]

Do you think what whitehouse did this week is going to change the burn? This is federal land .https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-of ... t-and-acro