The Green Glance | Desert festival a model of sustainable community

Nathan Zucker Opinions Editor

Every year, 45,000 people from all over the globe travel to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada for the psychedelic arts festival known as Burning Man. The week-long event, which began in 1986, has become a celebration of self-reliance, radicalism and creativity. Artists exhibit their works to an audience of thousands; fesival-goers also explore the desert and learn how to live in such an unwelcoming area. At the end of the week, a wooden statue of a man is burned; the night of the burning serves as the jubilant culmination of the festival.

Although Burning Man forces each participant to adapt to the harsh environment of the region, it is also a tribute to community living, as everyone must cooperate in order to guarantee the event’s success. In the spirit of community action, the festival started to emphasize environmental sustainability in 2007, showcasing unique and unusual solutions to the ecological issues created by this temporary city. The environmental focus of this year’s festival highlights the need for American society to use its entrepreneurial ingenuity to help our rapidly deteriorating planet survive.

In attempting to promote sustainability at Burning Man, the festival’s organizers first tackled the issue of electricity. A group of Berkeley engineers installed a solar photovoltaic cell that generated enough energy to illuminate the Man’s green lights and power the surrounding pavilion. Additionally, several camps used solar energy to provide electricity for their equipment. Fortunately, the high cost of solar panels was heavily subsidized by the state of Nevada, which gives significant incentives to producers of alternative energy.

Although most festival participants still relied on traditional generators for electricity in 2007, the experiments with solar energy demonstrated several important principles. First, they showed that the U.S. government must encourage alternative energy through economic measures. Both businesses and individuals can be spurred to adopt cleaner forms of power through subsidies. Second, the use of solar energy at Burning Man demonstrated that the energy of the future will be decentralized. Instead of relying on a national grid for electricity, individuals will have the empowering opportunity to produce their own through solar, wind and other alternative sources. Such a system will reduce the power of multinational corporations, allowing for citizens to have a say in the future of American energy.

As well as altering their means of providing electricity, Burning Man’s organizers also attempted to shift away from the use of fossil fuels which contribute to global warming. Eighty-five percent of the 2007 festival’s generators were powered by biodiesel, which was sourced from fryers used at local restaurants. The recycling of this fuel, which would normally be discarded, prevented the consumption of 11,000 gallons of petroleum. Naturally, questions about the large-scale implementation of biodiesels abound. For example, there is certainly not enough used vegetable oil to power the world’s automobiles, and producing the biofuel ethanol from corn is controversial because of the energy-intensive nature of American agriculture. However, positive results emerged from the Burning Man experiment, showing that biodiesels may be part of the solution to society’s energy woes.

The Burning Man festival’s refusal to continue burning petroleum products should serve as an example to society. Although there are still many questions about alternative energy, it is certain that a continued reliance on coal, oil and gas is entirely unsustainable. Regardless of any problems with new energy sources, innovative experiments must be carried out in order to avoid certain ecological devastation. The myriad sources of biodiesel employed at the festival proved that a new energy system cannot rely on a single solution. There is no silver bullet to tackle the issue of fossil fuel dependency. Instead, society must work to implement a variety of measures that will allow for the transition from our current economy to one that emphasizes alternative energy and sustainability.

Burning Man still has many sustainability issues to tackle, and the festival’s organizers admit that the event is far from green in its present form. Nevertheless, Burning Man still serves as a powerful example of how change can be effected by individuals with creative solutions. If the reforms instituted at the festival start to occur on a larger scale, the education provided by the event will have been valuable. More than anything else, Burning Man offers the hope that society can overcome its ecological problems and embrace a bright, sustainable future.