Impact on the Environment

[WasteNotWantNot]

A truly conscious environmentalist would probably have invested the time in reading the 300+ page environmental assessment when it was published a few years ago. If you missed it, set aside some time and do that as soon as you can. It is a dry read (like any government and scientific environmental assessment), but contains a lot of interesting information. Extremely worthwhile, if you care about either the event or the environmnet, in my opinion.

appreciate it, my man

i will check this out

[chiefdanfox]

I sort of struggled with this on my first build, but someone remarked that it was overall less "impact" for a number of good reasons:
·Less driving overall for most of the 70k folks out there. A lot less. If one considers that a huge chunk of the population comes out of the Bay Area, and that none of those people are back in town stuck in traffic, it probably adds up.
·The annual burns are about like a single movie set of waste. Granted, a movie that only gets 70k people to go see it is either really good or really godawful.
·The whole LNT thing is beat into you like old school catechism, so that Pavlovian response most of us have about litter and waste is probably a net positive. Rumor has it that the BLM adopted this as policy to other permit users, but I honestly have never verified this for myself. If true however, it holds the double win of being good for our public lands and probably pissing Ted Nugent off.

·Finally, I am righteously duped into buying carbon credits for my projects, both fuel and materials. That way I can ride around the city like the smug prick that I am.

[goathead]

There is a reason why it is called Burning Man, and not Rainbow.

[Bless]

Rainbow Man

[BoyScoutGirl]

chiefdanfox, with the incredible, amazing art (and related performances) you make happen, you could be the smuggest prick on Earth and I'd still think you're groovy. Thanks!

[BBadger]

I actually like how this event really makes no excuses about its resource consumption. Let's get real here, if you or anyone were actually serious about "environmental impact" outside of the effects on the playa itself, you wouldn't attend. You wouldn't "participate" in this yearly sacrifice on this altar of consumption.

Let it go man. This is Burning Man, not a hippie festival. Don't be this guy:


"Yeah man, we don't need them -- but we'll still use their electricity for our music and gasoline for our buses."


We know what we're doing. We're burning shit in the middle of nowhere. We're driving oversized art cars that weigh up to tens of thousands of pounds at idle speeds just to have a cool mode of transportation. We haul a temporary city to the middle of a dried-out, empty lake-bed, only to wipe it clear after a few weeks. We travel thousands of miles and transport megatons worth of supplies and transportation just to hang out for a week in relative comfort. We ruin our gear, costumes, and supplies with corrosive dust that can never be fully washed out. We power our city using gasoline-driven generators, lead-acid batteries, or solar panels that probably won't be used much during the remainder of the year. We generate light and sound to rival Las Vegas, all without a Hoover Dam to power us.

And you know what?

It's great.

[Simon of the Playa]

game.set.match.


BBadger.

[chuckularone]

I actually like how this event really makes no excuses about its resource consumption. Let's get real here, if you or anyone were actually serious about "environmental impact" outside of the effects on the playa itself, you wouldn't attend. You wouldn't "participate" in this yearly sacrifice on this altar of consumption.

Let it go man. This is Burning Man, not a hippie festival. Don't be this guy:


"Yeah man, we don't need them -- but we'll still use their electricity for our music and gasoline for our buses."


We know what we're doing. We're burning shit in the middle of nowhere. We're driving oversized art cars that weigh up to tens of thousands of pounds at idle speeds just to have a cool mode of transportation. We haul a temporary city to the middle of a dried-out, empty lake-bed, only to wipe it clear after a few weeks. We travel thousands of miles and transport megatons worth of supplies and transportation just to hang out for a week in relative comfort. We ruin our gear, costumes, and supplies with corrosive dust that can never be fully washed out. We power our city using gasoline-driven generators, lead-acid batteries, or solar panels that probably won't be used much during the remainder of the year. We generate light and sound to rival Las Vegas, all without a Hoover Dam to power us.

And you know what?

It's great.

I think I just shed a tear. A better summation is not coming,