How Green was the Green Man?

An Exploration of Burning Man’s Efforts to Become Environmentally Friendly

By Matthew A. Taylor

(.pdf)

(shorter version to be published on Alternet)

I. Introduction

II. Solar Power: Electrifying the Playa

III. Biofuels: Fueling Ecocide…

IV. Algae:…or Fueling Hope?

V. Gasification: Can Garbage Save the World?

VI. Water Bottles: Drowning in a Sea of Plastic

VII. Global Warming: Offsetting Apocalypse?

VIII. Education and Art: Green Living 101?

IX. Conclusion: Life After Burning Man

X. Comments and Links

I. Introduction [ top ]

Can 45,000 people journey vast distances to a barren, lifeless desert and participate in an environmentally sustainable festival devoted to burning stuff? As strange as it sounds, during the last week of August 2007, the annual hedonistic celebration Burning Man attempted to do just that: go ‘green.’

What has Burning Man actually done to merit its theme, The Green Man? Is Burning Man making serious efforts to green itself, or is it all a front, a form of greenwashing? How will the Burning Man experience affect burners, and will they bring it home into their lives? What does the Green Man art theme say about the state of civilization and its trajectory? It was in search of answers to these questions and others unimagined that the author trekked to the playa this year.

A certain segment of the Burning Man community has long made respect for the environment a high priority. For years, event organizers have promoted a “leave no trace” ethic and encouraged all participants to scour campsites down to the tiniest scraps. The under-appreciated Earth Guardians work year-round to keep the playa clean and tidy, and ensure that “burn scars” don't deface the desert. Burners Without Borders, a group of volunteers vowing to “bring it home,” journeyed to the Hurricane Katrina destruction zone in 2005 to provide an estimated one million dollars worth of free home demolitions to help property owners clear away wreckage from the disaster. Last year, the same group salvaged six semi trucks full of reclaimed wood from the festival and donated it to Habitat for Humanity. (This year, a Burning Man spokesperson says it was even more).

But in the past few years, participants have demanded a much higher level of environmental responsibility from their beloved festival. Just keeping the desert free from “MOOP” (matter out of place) was not enough.

According to Kachina Katrina Zavalney, volunteer coordinator for Burning Man’s Green Team, at last year’s burn, “I was walking around feeling unhappy – not like I had a chip on my shoulder, but more like, ‘Gosh, people think this place is so progressive, but yet it smells so bad from all the generators, it’s so loud, there’s not a lot that people can say about the environmental efforts or what’s being done out here.”

Kachina Katrina frantically coordinated final details before the burn.

An alliance of like-minded volunteers converged around the Green Theme for 2007. The task was daunting.

“The idea of building a sustainable, temporary city in the middle of nowhere on its face is preposterous. So you have to start from that point of view. There’s no frame against which our work here can be compared except ourselves…because no one else does what we do. Given that, I think what we’ve been able to accomplish is extraordinary,” said Tom Price, environmental manager for the Green Man theme for the Green Man theme.

Nobel peace laureate Al Gore, whose cable network Current TV was onsite to document the event, expressed optimism about the playa's green prospects.

“I think it's just great that the people of Black Rock City have made the Green Man this year's theme for Burning Man, and I hope that folks will use TV Free Burning Man as a platform to spread that great message even further," said the former vice president.

“Because we build the city from the ground up we’re able to look at everything and change whatever we want to on a dime. So, we’ve looked at transportation, solid waste, materials, energy, art, media, everything, all aspects of the event,” Price added.

Green Man environmental manager Tom Price took a break to reflect on the green campaign.

Analyzing the environmental sustainability of a city of 45,000 people is a monumental task. Given space constraints, we’ll examine a few elements: electricity, water, fuel, carbon, education, and the future.

II. Solar Power: Electrifying the Playa [ top ]

Solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity is one of the best-known, venerable “green” technologies, and deservedly so. It receives across-the-board plaudits from environmentalists (unlike controversial biofuels) and quickly becomes a net-positive energy source: after only a year, a solar panel typically generates more energy than was consumed in its manufacture.

This year, Black Rock City LLC (“the LLC”) worked with a team of Berkeley engineers from The Shipyard to install a 30-kilowatt solar array in the shape of the Native, sacred Zia Sun symbol. The array powered the pedestal underneath the iconic man statue and the surrounding Green Pavilion. (Such an array could power approximately 10 to 20 San Francisco homes). Batteries stored extra energy during the day so the man could glow green all night.

The array came in handy when the man burned unexpectedly early during the Tuesday lunar eclipse: the array powered the tools needed to rebuild the man.

In the spirit of Burning Man’s “gift economy” – where playa-goers are encouraged to give for the sake of giving without expectation of return – a wealthy burner named Matt Cheney, who runs a green-technology venture capital firm, fronted the funds necessary to help the LLC gift the array to the city of Gerlach, Nev. to power a school. By November, the LLC plans to donate 120 kilowatts worth of solar arrays to Gerlach and 60 KW to Lovelock.

Cheney only has to front the money for the panels; most of the cost will be refunded by the state of Nevada, which offers sizable incentives for solar PV (nearly double California’s). Burners Without Borders signed up to provide the necessary labor to install the array.

Several theme camps also deployed solar PV, such as the Snow Koan Solar Camp which offered refreshing snow cones to burners as well as free electricity. A sign implored, “Come charge your: cart, scooter, buggy, laptop, camera, flashlights, cell phone, gameboy, DVD player, walkie talkies, iPod, tea kettle, toaster, snow cone machine, personal air conditioner, toothbrush, hair dryer, home theatre system, vibrator, robot pet, XP 238 space modulator, & etc.”

Snow Koan Solar Camp advertised free electricity for anyone with a gadget in need of juice.

William Korthof of Snow Koan recognized that solar PV is out of reach for most theme camps, because few if any companies rent solar arrays. “The panels are expensive and the best way to make them cheaper is to keep them in permanent use. They’re kind of bulky, so if you stick them on the back of a truck, they’re a little bigger than a normal generator,” said Korthof.

Korthof, who is a professional solar installer, offered to rent the solar arrays to any camp that contacted him before the burn. He estimated the pricing to be equivalent to what a generator would cost.

William Korthof suns himself on Snow Koan's solar array.

Of course, while the solar arrays might generate clean power on the playa and relieve noise pollution, they’ll never make up for the expenditure of fossil fuels required to transport them to the desert.

Meanwhile, Korthof talked about the importance of energy efficiency. “If you have incandescent light bulbs or halogen work lights, we try to get people to switch over to compact fluorescent or LED lights.”

Phil “Peef” Sadow, a Berkeley engineer who helped to install the LLC’s solar array, observed that the festival has made strides but still has a long way to go.

“Center Camp [which is run by the LLC] uses old, incandescent lights…and a lot of the lights use 500 watts a pop. It’s not very efficient. They are slowly investing in better lighting technologies; it’s expensive and it takes time,” said Peef.

Aliza Wasserman, founder of Green Guerillas Against Greenwash, was disappointed to observe few electric vehicles on the playa, unlike the large number of gasoline-powered art cars (so-called “mutant vehicles”). She places blame back in the real world at the doorstep of a San Ramon, Calif. oil company.

“Chevron bought the patent for a new type of battery for electric cars and shut down the battery company and did not allow the patents to be used by anyone because it was a huge threat to oil profits. That one act remains to this day the main challenge for transitioning to electric cars and keeps our society addicted to oil, which therefore threatens to be the nail in the coffin for humanity. And it’s all because one company had the ownership of two different types of energy sources,” said Wasserman.

“As a society, we should demand that the government not allow this type of joint energy ownership. We should clearly differentiate between the different economic interests of various technologies so that there is no mixed incentive and that doesn’t keep our government from moving forward with the renewable technologies we need,” Wasserman concluded. She also cited General Electric’s investment in dirty nuclear and clean wind technologies as a problematic conflict of interest.

While electricity has been stymied in the auto sector, a new source of transportation power is gathering momentum at home and on the playa: biofuels.

III. Biofuels: Fueling Ecocide… [ top ]

While burner activists may agree that fossil fuel extraction and consumption is destructive, unsustainable, implicated in human rights violations around the world, a destroyer of wildlife habitats, and a contributor to global warming, nothing like a broad agreement yet exists in the burner community on what, if anything, should replace the fossil fuel regime.

Take, for instance, biofuels – fuels processed from organic matter. President Bush is high on ethanol these days, a corn-based substitute for standard gasoline that is highly controversial because it is usually made from genetically modified organisms and produces energy yields that are less than the fossil fuel required to grow it. (Thus, unlike solar photovoltaic, ethanol is a net energy loser according to Prof. Tad Patzek of UC Berkeley’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Program.) As highly subsidized corporate farms grow more corn for ethanol and less for food, corn supplies dwindle and prices increase. Recent tortilla riots in Mexico have been traced to the burgeoning push toward ethanol.

Nevertheless, the LLC and individual burners have tried to find ways to procure environmentally and socially responsible biofuels, such as waste vegetable oil. About 85 percent of the LLC’s generators were powered by biodiesel this year. According to Price, “We took [out] 11,000 gallons [of petroleum] that were coming from human rights hotspots like Saudi Arabia and Nigeria and instead we’re running it off french fry juice from Reno – thanks, Reno!”

The Sustainable Living Road Show was one of the numerous burner encampments utilizing and promoting biofuels. The San Francisco-based group plans to travel around the country to demonstrate a variety of green technologies such as solar and wind power, as well as alternative medicinal healing. Their bus featured a colorful panoramic mural depicting a lush, green country setting and a harmless-looking grey city. A sign on the bus prominently proclaimed, “Runs on Biofuel!”

The Sustainable Living Road Show crew is proud to promote biofuels, which critics charge is propaganda for corporate-driven, unethical practices.

“As we’re promoting biofuels, we’re talking about ethical, sustainable biofuels, because not all biofuels are ethical or sustainable,” said Road Show member Jonathan Youtt of San Francisco.

But Dr. Ignacio Chapela of U.C. Berkeley’s Environmental Science, Policy, and Management program said that Youtt and other biofuel-promoting burners are playing right into the hands of international oil conglomerates that have recently embraced biofuels as a successor to fossil fuels.

“Even the use of the term biofuels has enormous propaganda value for the movement toward biofuels. [Burners] can be very responsible about which specific material they burn and where it comes from, but that's not the point. The point is this is a public event whose appearance is the most important thing. The propaganda value they provide with the word ‘biofuel’ is something that concerns me a lot because the vast majority of biofuel development is not socially or environmentally conscious. They’re playing with fire – propaganda fire – which is the worst kind of fire you can have around art,” said Chapela.

Biofuel controversy recently engulfed Chapela’s employer U.C. Berkeley when the “world’s number one public university” agreed to accept $500 million from a private corporation, British Petroleum, to genetically engineer a “new generation” of biofuels. Hidden in the deal’s fine print were plans to enlist U.C. scientists to devise more efficient ways to extract oil reserves. The deal sparked ferocious opposition on the campus from students and faculty members such as Chapela, who see the deal not only as a dangerous disintegration of the university’s academic integrity and collaboration with a technology that has demonstrated negative environmental and social impacts, but also a kind of “prostitution” of the public university for the benefit of a corrupt, ecocidal private interest.

Palm oil plantations in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brazil have been linked to enormous deforestation, species loss, and impending extinction of the orangutan population. According to Patzek, before the advent of biofuel plantations, Indonesia was number 28 in the world in greenhouse gas emissions; now it is number three, behind only China and the United States. The activist organization Biofuel Watch also describes numerous human rights violations and death squad assassinations carried out by paramilitaries in the Global South on behalf of the oil conglomerates to expropriate indigenous land for biofuel cultivation.

As a result of the overwhelming negative indicators, the European Union is now considering a proposed moratorium on biofuels signed by hundreds of environmental pressure groups.

Are members of the Sustainable Living Road Show concerned about the possibility that their bus is a marketing vehicle on behalf of corporations such as British Petroleum?

Sonya Sophia Illig, who practices alternative medicine, was not disturbed by the idea. “That may be to our advantage in a way, where we are here to connect with those in power. And if they think that we’re helping them with their agenda, fabulous, that gives us a little extra ‘in’ to come in and say, ‘Guess what? We’re here to come on in and you don’t need to be afraid of us. See, biofuel! We’re on the same team.’”

Road Show compatriot Youtt added, “I certainly don’t think I would be promoting British Petroleum. What they’re doing is a greenwash spin on the backs of countless years of grassroots endeavors…. The way we could counteract the inadvertent support of a British Petroleum-based biofuel approach is to talk about sustainable biofuel and maybe that’s what we need to paint on our trucks. So people ask, ‘What’s the difference between sustainable biofuel and regular biofuel?’”

Illig chimed in, “Let’s go get the organically grown golden spray paint and do it right now!”

Youtt admitted that not all the biofuel the Road Show will obtain on its cross-country trip is as innocuous as reclaimed veggie oil. And as Patzek has asserted, there’s no such thing as scalable biofuels: if the U.S. were to switch its entire auto fleet to biofuels, there would not be enough land to grow both fuel and food. Because biofuel is so land- and energy-intensive, any attempt to scale it is done on the backs of the poor, who could no longer afford to eat. Other than reclaiming waste vegetable oil, which at maximum can fuel a tiny fraction of the nation’s automobiles, biofuels would appear to be a dead end.

John Stayton of Dominican University’s Green M.B.A. program commented on biofuels: “When we start developing solutions to our problems, it’s very important for us to think systemically in terms of all the implications of our actions. Without being mindful of all of the impacts of doing that, then we’re likely to create unintended consequences that could be as bad as the problem we’re trying to solve. So we have to make sure we’re thinking systemically and critically before taking action in a rash manner.”

IV. Algae: …or Fueling Hope? [ top ]

Two experimental biofuel technologies were rolled out at Black Rock City: algae bioreactors and gasification. While neither played a role in greening the event, they served as previews of what the future might (or might not) hold.

Situated underneath the Green Pavilion, the Chlorophyll Collective displayed a truck-size “bioreactor” with algae in plastic tubes furiously munching away on carbon dioxide emissions from a generator. A sign characterized the technology as “The Single-Cell Solution for Global Warming: greenhouse-gas eating algae.”

According to Bayview resident Meg “Algae Girl” Bracken, director of the Chlorophyll Collective, “Algae can solve many of the problems of our industrial society. They can produce much more food, fertilizer, and/or biofuels per acre than any other crop, and they can be grown on wastewater or salt water, on marginal land, or even on the surface of bodies of water. Algae can clean water and air, and build soil. Many algae are packed full of vitamins, minerals, and other key nutrients (such as omega-3 fatty acids) and make excellent additions to the diets of people and animals.”

The Chlorophyll Collective demonstrated an enormous bioreactor filled with carbon dioxide munching algae. Is there such a thing as a single cell solution for global warming?

Bracken believes that if certain cost and technical barriers can be surmounted, algae has the potential to be a much more efficient source of biofuel than any other. “The amount of oil that we can harvest from algae is already much, much higher than the amount we can harvest from traditional oilseeds,” she remarked. Bracken proposes algae cooperatives as a means to drive down the cost of oil extraction and processing.

Bracken asserted that algae ethanol would potentially be a non-emitting, “closed loop” system: “The high amounts of CO₂ produced in the process of fermenting alcohol or ethanol can be fed directly to algae which then grows profusely and can be harvested to make ethanol.” She promoted algae as a potential salve to global greenhouse gas emissions.

“Worldwide fossil fuel combustion releases more than 30 billion metric tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere each year. This could all be offset with 0.5 million square miles of algae ponds, roughly one-third of the area of the Sahara desert. While decreasing consumption and increasing efficiency are essential for reducing and eventually preventing greenhouse gas emissions, advancing the art of algae cultivation to a state where it can become widespread may be the most realistic technique for removing accumulated greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere, undoing more than one hundred years of industrial excess,” Bracken postulated.

But UC Berkeley Professor of Geoengineering Tad Patzek characterized the Chlorophyll Collective’s ambitions as wholly unrealistic. “While it’s true that because algae are not encumbered by roots and leaves they can dedicate more of their photosynthesis to growing, that at the same time is their weakness. They need to be suspended in three dimensions in water so they can receive unobstructed light. All these ponds that people are so cavalierly talking about must be very shallow – half a meter in depth – and therefore they must occupy enormous areas. So unless you have an enormous lagoon that’s hooked up to the sea or the ocean, you would never be able to keep these ponds operating, because, one, the water would immediately evaporate, and two, what does not evaporate would seep into the ground. The second problem, these algae don’t thrive only on light, they also need to receive nitrogen, phosphorous, zinc, iron, and other materials that need to be delivered to a huge pond. There’s a bit of a problem of delivering all these nutrients into very large areas. So you can see that when you achieve an area larger than a swimming pool, we’re running into a problem,” Patzek stated.

“Algae indeed are very useful at cleaning up sewage streams and can be converted into fertilizer, but that’s on a relatively small scale and has very little to do with saving the planet from global CO₂ emissions. In order to absorb the emissions of a coal-fired power plant, you’d have to put a million of these bioreactors side-by-side. It’s simply not scalable. People are ready to believe anything. Their deep wishful thinking has been confronted by reality in the case of corn and palm oil biofuels. People automatically reach for the next imaginary solution, and since algae hasn’t been thoroughly tested yet, it’s the next candidate,” Patzek added.

V. Gasification: Can Garbage Save the World? [ top ]

Gasification was the next entrant into Black Rock City’s green science fair. Jim Mason, owner of Berkeley’s The Shipyard art studio, showcased an art vehicle known as The Mechabolic, a “trash-to-fuel land speed racer slug.” The stupendous, creaky machine was overflowing with gadgetry, a green-tech geek’s wet dream.

A panoramic view of Mechabolic. (photo by csellers42)

Powering Mechabolic is a technology that’s as old as human societies: gasification. Gasification is a process by which organic material is smoldered in a low-oxygen, high-temperature environment. In the case of Mechabolic, the resultant hydrogen is used to directly power an unmodified internal combustion engine. What’s left at the end is a clump of carbon that can be plowed into the ground as fertilizer. (San Francisco mayoral candidate Chicken John Rinaldi, who built a gasified truck based on Mason’s schematics, calls it “plant crack.”) Tom Price says that pre-Columbian Indians used to cut down organic matter in the Amazon basin, gasify it into ash, and fertilize the soil.

Thus, with gasification, a vehicle can run on almost any organic material, such as walnut shells or coffee grounds. Price sees gasification as the world’s best hope to stop global warming and envisions a future when humans strip-mine landfills for fuel. Mason has made all of his gasification tinkering available to the world for free - open source - which befuddles the investment community.

According to Price, “In May, we took [Chicken John’s gasified truck] to the Clean Tech conference in San José - hundreds and hundreds of V.C.s and C.T.O.s and all their multi-million dollar projects. And we pull up out front and Chicken stands in the back in a jumpsuit that says ‘Café Racer Crew’ on it and he’s like, ‘We’re making open source, carbon-negative renewable energy running on garbage in your parking lot, and we did it with junk we found in our shop in two days. What have you guys got?’ And they went crazy, and they kept asking him, ‘What’s your business model, what’s your business model?’ He said, ‘It’s not a business model it’s art.’ And they’re like, ‘What’s the point of the art?’ And he said, ‘What’s the point of politics? Politics is to divide people. What’s the point of art? Art is to bring people together. You and I, we’ve been brought together by this art. Congratulations, I win, thank you, next customer.’”

On the playa, Mechabolic offered burners the unique opportunity to shove waste into a tank and watch, see, and learn how this both powered the machine and produced a potent fertilizer.

Mason reflected on his experience with Mechabolic: “I demonstrated how to make a carbon-negative flamethrower by combining a trash-to-fuel gasification system with charcoal-based agriculture. Yes, it is odd, but there is a way to ‘burn things’ that is better for the total carbon cycle than to do nothing. Whether this is meaningful or not has nothing to do the absolute carbon count of the project on the playa, of course.”

Patzek is as skeptical about the future of gasification as he is about algae. “If we are running a car on a little bit of biomass to do the absolute minimum amount of driving, I’m all for it. Otherwise, it’s another symptom of not understanding the scale involved.” Patzek believes that the U.S. and world must radically reduce energy consumption and move toward zero-waste communities that live in harmony with nature’s cycles. He says the truly green way for burners to get to the playa is not gasified cars, but cycling.

Whether algae or gasification plays any substantial future role in saving the planet – or greening Black Rock City – remains to be seen.

VI. Water Bottles: Drowning in a Sea of Plastic [ top ]

On the parched playa, water is perhaps the scarcest and most crucial resource. Every year, several hundred burners collapse from dehydration and end up in medics’ tents on IV drips. “Drink before you’re thirsty” is the official survival guide’s most prominent guideline for intrepid burners. The alternative satirical playa newspaper Piss Clear derives its moniker from the same advice: drink enough water literally to piss clear.

Every year, burners haul hundreds of thousands of plastic water bottles to the playa -- everyone is responsible for his or her own hydration. However, is this particular manifestation of “radical self-reliance” (a stated core tenet of the event) compatible with Burning Man’s efforts to go green?

Not according to the Green Pavilion’s own commentary on the threat of plastic waste. An installation entitled “How does our use of plastic water bottles contribute to the decline of the albatross?” proclaimed the threat to avian life posed by the ubiquitous bottles that all too often blow or wash into oceans from urban areas.

“Ingestion of plastic waste is a problem faced by many sea birds, particularly the albatross. As they scour the ocean surface for sustenance, they encounter all manner of plastic debris, often mistaking it for food. The plastic found in the birds’ gullets includes everything from Lego blocks and clothespins to golf balls and water bottle caps. These objects can perforate birds’ stomachs or cause them to choke or suffocate,” explained the installation.

According to the display, such waste has found a new home in the world’s largest dump – the Eastern Garbage Patch, a floating garbage patch located at the Midway Atoll halfway between California and Japan. It’s about twice the size of Texas.

In a recent San Francisco Chronicle op-ed, Jared Blumenfeld of the City’s Department of the Environment and Susan Leal of the Public Utilities Commission articulated numerous critiques of water bottles: they can leach toxins into the water, are transported from all over the world (using enormous amounts of fossil fuels), and often contain water that’s of lower quality than municipal water sources. Plastic recycling is inefficient and polluting at best, and one billion bottles end up in California landfill every year. Ironically, plastic bottles leak toxins into the groundwater, harming the public water supply.

Can anything be done to green Burning Man’s water supply?

Burner Matthew “Hitch” McDermid of San Francisco believes so. He proposes that large theme camps could band together to purchase 500 or 1000-gallon containers and truck in fresh water from springs and aquifers in Lake Tahoe area or similar sources. Alternatively, he thinks that the LLC could build the cost into ticket prices and fully centralize water distribution. After all, the LLC already takes collective responsibility for ice sales, coffee sales, and excrement disposal on the playa via the Johnny-on-the-Spot latr