A Green Burning Man?

The Burning Man Festival in Nevada has decided to go green. My response--who cares?

"Much of the funded art deals with green themes, and at least one (the Mechabolic) is also a research project in alternative fuels. Much of the power for the city services will be provided by solar panels this year, and the rest will come from biodiesel-powered generators; participants are encouraged to switch their camps to solar, wind or bio-fuels as well. Most significantly, the entire nearby town of Gerlach will be taken off the grid to run on solar power--permanently, all year round."

Plus they claim they are buying carbon offsets, etc. Jeremy Faludi's article reads like a defensive defense of Burning Man.

Really though, all of this is all too emblematic of many Americans simply not wanting to make the real changes that will help solve environmental problems. I don't care if you're buying carbon credits, using solar power, and whatever. If you take 35,000 people out of the cities and have to get them to a remote spot in northwestern Nevada, you are doing some pretty significant environmental damage. The sheer amount of fossil fuels it takes to move all those people out there, particularly when many are no doubt driving less than fuel efficient vehicles, is fairly staggering. They can buy all the carbon credits they want, but I don't think it makes a whit of difference. In fact, I'm far from sold on the idea of carbon credits.

The real way to make a difference here is not go to this remote location. Having smaller festivals in an urban setting would make much more environmental sense, though of course there would be a lot of other obstacles to deal with. But that would never happen. Why? People simply don't want to make the slightest sacrifice to deal with climate change. They are happy placing a tiny town in the middle of nowhere on solar energy (especially if they don't think about the chemicals it takes to create solar panels) but really, they aren't going to inconvenience themselves in the least.

And they are certainly not going to cancel the festival to protect the environment. God forbid.