Climate Chaos at Burning Man is a Cautionary Tale
This article is authored by Leor Rotchild, a member of the CHCA Environment, Climate Change and Sustainability Committee. Leor is a local resident, consultant, and published author.
One person was found dead and 70,000 people were left stranded due to a tropical storm during the 2023 Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert.
It was not the only challenge Burning Man faced that year as a coalition of climate activists parked a 28-foot trailer across the road, causing several miles of gridlock until local law enforcement eventually rammed through the blockade.
The protesters at Burning Man, known as the Seven Circles Alliance, aimed to provoke more aggressive climate action. Their demands included banning private jets, single-use plastics, unnecessary propane burning, and unlimited generator usage during the nine-day event.
According to the Burning Man Project’s own estimates, more than 90 percent of the event’s carbon footprint comes from travel to and from Black Rock City. Another five percent comes from gas and diesel-burning generators that keep lights and air conditioners on throughout the festival. When you factor these together, Burning Man is responsible for about 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to more than what 22,000 gas-powered cars produce in a year.
The annual nine-day Burning Man festival is held in what is typically an arid and dusty desert town known as Black Rock City. This year, the site became a muddy swamp after the clouds opened up and crashed the party with two to three months’ worth of rain in just over 24 hours.
Burning Man attendees were instructed to shelter in place and ration their food, water, and fuel.
Climate change has rewritten the rules, and our existing contingency plans for major events no longer suffice. It’s time to throw away the old playbook and reimagine scenarios that account for the intensifying climate events we face. From sudden floods to raging wildfires and extreme heat waves, we must anticipate the unpredictable and adapt accordingly.
Engaging the right stakeholders as part of revised contingency plans is important and should include meteorology experts and local emergency services. Burning Man did both but still underestimated the risks, so more imaginative scenarios are required for adequate preparations.
If Burning Man is a target for protestors, then all events face the same risk. After all, Burning Man is a leader. Their 2030 road map aims to remove enough CO2 from the environment to achieve carbon negative as well as become regenerative and ensure “no matter out of place,” or zero waste.
Both the tropical storm and the climate protest are existential threats to Burning Man, as well as all major events. Can the festival continue as it has before? Does burning “the Man” still make sense when our world is already burning?
The even bigger question is what is the role of events in our world when their environmental impacts are so big, and the risks of climate disruptions are so consequential?’
Adapting to the new risks and contingency measures required for events is only one part of the way forward. The entire events industry needs to reimagine its role as a valuable contributor to the most pressing challenges of our time. Major events from the World Cup to the Global Energy Show and Calgary Folk Music Festival to the Calgary Stampede must be part of the solution to climate change, not part of the problem.
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