[block_dagger]

I like this but doesn't Burning Man itself constitute a hugely inefficient use of fossil fuels and unsustainable material use? The name has "burning" right in it. The climax is a bonfire. What about the air pollution? Perhaps it would be better for the planet if Burning Man didn't exist at all.

[operatingthetan]

The event produces a huge amount of trash too. Every year you can see videos on youtube of people taking their moop out of the playa and just dumping it wherever (shopping malls, parking lots, the side of the road) in Nevada and California. The ethos only happens at the event and then all bets are off. I say that as an ex-burner.

[elif]

I doubt the amount of generators running constitute some sunstantial fossil fuel use, at least not more than 70,000 people sitting at home in air conditioning doing "nothing". I would welcome your math though.

[bunnie]

I've run power for a 100-person theme camp in the past. According to the logs, we burned an average of 36.8 gallons per day, or 1.4 liters/person/day (we ran the generator for 9 days total) in 2025. The camp has air conditioners (iirc ~20 units), lighting, freezers, etc. although not everyone has all of the above.

The average household consumption of electricity per day in the US is about 28kWh, which would take around 7-9 liters/day of diesel. Assuming an average US household of 2.6 persons, that's about 3 liters/person/day for electricity alone - does not include gas/electricity spent driving. So, at least for this camp, the average person is using less electricity at the burn, than if we weren't at burning man.

The fossil fuels spent getting to and from the event are more substantial than those burned at the event, but this is a separate discussion I think as to whether or not people should be flying to conferences, events, or taking vacations. COVID was great for reducing travel-related fossil fuel consumption, so we have the data and the experience on how to reduce that, but probably not the will.

The power logs are pretty interesting to look at. On average the generator is lightly loaded, so a lot of energy is going towards idling the generator, but batteries are expensive and these generators are not made to be stopped and started repeatedly.

[block_dagger]

Thanks for the math. My mind was more on the transportation pollution (moving all the people and stuff into the desert and then back out again, every year). The amount of CO2 spent on flying people around for business and vacations blows my mind. Using jet engines should be something like 10x more expensive than they are to reflect the actual burden on future generations of humans and other species.

[justin]

Then it’s somewhat intellectually dishonest to single out Burning Man vs any other kind of vacation travel.

[leptons]

I don't know anyone that goes to Burning Man that thinks it's some kind of conservation event. It was started on a beach in SF to mourn the loss of a relationship by a man with a broken heart. Then it got too big and moved to the desert. I think a lot of people have misconceptions about what Burning Man really is. The fact is, it's a lot of things to a lot of people, but one thing it is not is, is fuel efficiency or any kind of conservation.

The fact that it gets cleaned up is only due to the requirement to get a permit for the next year.

In 1997, BM was held on a private property, and the playa there was absolutely trashed, for as far as you could see. Bottles and cans littered everywhere. In the morning after the burn, I saw one woman was going around picking it all up. Others started to join in. It was not pretty. I think we made a dent in cleaning it up, but the trash was everywhere.

Unlike today, where people actually do make an attempt to clean up, but obviously some still do not give a single fuck about it.