What’s scarier than the monster under the bed? Flooding, wildfires, heatwaves; our nightmares are alive and kicking. And what’s more? We have something to do with it. The Anthropocene is the term used to define the planetary epoch created by humans. Now, more than ever, we are living in our own creation. What does that look like, and how will we adapt in a changing world?
In this edition, we have both a a series of interviews about the attendees of Burning Man caught in a natural disaster and student works focused on the consequences of human action, and in some cases, inaction.
The Burning Man Series: An Introduction
This past July, Hurricane Hilary hit the Nevada desert. As unusual as that sounds, the strangest part was that there were 80,000 people already there, living in tents, creating art, and enjoying a makeshift city. If you haven’t heard of Burning Man, it’s a massive festival hosted essentially in the middle of nowhere, every year for a week. The destination is referred to as “Black Rock City,” a beacon drawing 80,000 human beings into the heart of a desert every summer, and nearly silent for every other day of the year.
Notably, this year, the gathering was visited by an unprecedented storm that left tens of thousands of people stranded, running out of food, water, and basic amenities. However, the Burning Man community was able to come together and mitigate some of these issues.
With the mismanagement of natural resources, burning of fossil fuels, and increase in CO2 we can only expect to face an increase in climate crises across the world, whether we are prepared to face them or not. The plight Burning Man attendees faced is only a microcosm of our own looming reality.
Burning Man is unique in its flexibility, and structure. Although the event takes months to plan, much of their structures are created just as quickly as they are dismantled, in ordinance with the Bureau of Land Management. There is a very small ratio to how much trash is left in the park. If there is too much trash per hectare, the legal consequence for Burning Man is that it will be permanently shut down. All attendees are expected to bring their trash back with them, and there are year-long volunteer cleaning crews dedicated to catching any “matter out of place” (also referred to as MOOP). These are all policies we should have to take into consideration as we have to adapt as a society. To survive the approaching climate anthropocene, we have to be ready to change our structures and be flexible. Even though Burning Man didn’t go as expected, the community came together to ensure people survived.
In this edition we wanted to explore how people variously navigate climate disasters. We’ve interviewed six different attendees of Burning Man about their experiences of catastrophe and resilience.
Note: While Burning Man has a “Leave No Trace” philosophy and structure, there are valid critiques to the sustainability of this and other large scale events in natural settings. Read more about these concerns here.
“We need to learn to ebb and flow and to rethink how we’re living now so we can live better in the future.”
“Even though people were bummed out, there was still a lot of that, ‘okay, how can we make the best of this’?”
“They [many attendees] hiked out for five miles with their bags on and got out. Some people tried to drive out and their car got stuck.”
“One of these creations is the ‘mutant vehicle,’ a massive, glowing bus that runs on mostly renewable energy.”
Student Work:
