Burning Man 2008

It has been over a month since my last post that I have written something on Peak Oil. I have gone through moments of feeling I have having too much to write and other moments in which I feel I have nothing I could write about is worthwhile. However, I do enjoy writing, so after having gone through a wide spectrum of experiences during this time I thought I’d write another post approach a number of subjects from a Peak Oil perspective, of course.

First I want to confess a grave sin in order that I once and for all let go of the guilt I’ve been living in. I just came back from Burning Man 2008. This was my second time at Burning Man and trust me, I went there for the spirit of Burning Man which include the celebration of humanity, a great deal of giving and generosity, and being in a place of no judgment and censorship. Burning Man is a phenomenal party and I did not want to miss it in 2008. I doubt I’ll go in 20089 assuming there will be one. I say this because I’ve had my doubts for a while, considering all the changes the world and the USA are going through. Burning Man is incredibly energy intensive, and as we enter a period of an energy crunch I suspect that Burning Man will continue to happen for years to come, but possibly in a much smaller scale. I probably won’t attend Burning Man next year as I predict that gasoline could cost $7 a gallon by August, and the scenario of gasoline rationing nationwide is a plausible one in my view. There are already talks about decentralizing Burning Man so that people are not flying from all over the world to one central location.

My feeling of guilt comes from the fact that Burning Man is a party of excess consumption, which of course includes energy. After embracing the lifestyle of bicyclist for months, which helped me significantly reduce my consumption of gasoline and environmental footprint, I went to Burning Man in a Chevy truck that required more diesel than you could get in one straight pumping from any gas station. Some stations limit the amount of fuel you can pump at $75 (a safety feature) while others allow you to pump as much as $125 of fuel. Either way, we had to run the credit card again and continue to fill in order to get a full tank. I’m not proud to reveal this, but our round trip to the middle of nowhere and back required 184 gallons of diesel, and that for transportation alone. That number alone boggles my mind. Now, consider that there were about close to 50,000 participants this time, from all over the world. Some people came from as far as Wisconsin (by driving) while other people came from Australia and all parts of Europe. This makes for a spectacular party indeed, but it does go against any efforts towards sustainability.

There’s good at Burning Man, though. People often have an opinion even though they do not know what it is. If you want to have an opinion about Burning Man and sound somewhat educated, I recommend you form your opinion by talking to someone who actually has been to Burning Man. For example, the system of bartering and camping in tents is probably how many people will live in a future not too distant from now. Burning Man is great practice for that. I don’t think this type of life will exist in the desert (where there’s no water or anything besides dust, for that matter), but I do think the lifestyle will be very similar, and one that requires people to unite with their neighbors, to become social, and to share everything they have. As the world economy powers down it just makes a lot more sense to say, have a sledge hammer that everyone in a neighborhood can have, instead of each household having one item of everything that does not get shared.

I am currently reading a book titled The Long Descent, which is excellent and I’d like to recommend for anyone who wants to understand the effects Peak Oil will have in our society. I am reading this book not so much to gain understanding of Peak Oil (which I don’t think need any more of), but simply because I cannot put it down.

So long.