> If a bunch of people want to go to the desert with no cell phone service and just do their thing, why do we care?

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/burnin...

> ...and life would be better if more people had the ability to do their own flavors of Burning Man.

I'm biased and a bit amusingly jaded because I left the US many years ago and have been living overseas for a long time, so take my next paragraph with that context.

Have you been to a Mexican ranchero wedding that lasts several days? Enjoyed a weekend BBQ in a Filipino province? Been invited by a bunch of 60 and 70-somethings in a small town in Vietnam who don't speak English to sing karaoke with them?

Enjoying life doesn't have to be a monumental, once-a-year event, and it shouldn't be.

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gkoberger a day ago | parent [-]

You can't just post an article about pollution and use that as a trump card.

The pollution that comes from the Burning Man artwork, which is the crux of that article, is less than one plane from JFK to SFO. If we're going to complain about anything, the flights to Burning Man dwarf the actual event. But even then, the week of Burning Man, only 0.03% of travel will be people going to BM.

I get it, 70,000 people in one spot creates trash and pollution. But we all are, every minute of every day. In the grand scheme of things, Burning Man is _not_ the problem.

Why can't everyone just do what they want without us taking it to the extremes? I agree meeting locals is a ton of fun and should be a part of everyone's life. But if a bunch of people want to go to a desert and hang out for a week, and they clean up after themselves, why do you care?

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ElProlactin a day ago | parent | next [-]

> The pollution that comes from the Burning Man artwork, which is the crux of that article...

Did you even read the article? It stated very clearly:

> With organizers themselves estimating that Burning Man emits 100,000 tons of carbon every year, it is clear things cannot stay the same on the playa.

100,000 tons total. Please don't cherry-pick one part of the article to make a point.

> ...and they clean up after themselves...

Except, if you actually did the research, you would know that there are lots of reports of trash being dumped in nearby towns, including Reno and Tahoe. It's not the straightforward "they clean up after themselves" you make it out to be.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/07/burning-man-...

https://www.rgj.com/story/life/arts/burning-man/2023/09/06/b...

> Why can't everyone just do what they want without us taking it to the extremes?

Who took anything to an extreme? Most of my comment was pointing out that in much of the world, particularly in places where people have way less, they find a way to enjoy life and have fun without events that have the environmental impact of a Burning Man.

I'm not calling for Burning Man to be banned. But what I think is extreme is the idea that, because the "world kinda sucks", the solution is for people to take a few days out of the year to go into the desert and let loose. Have a monthly BBQ with friends. Sing karaoke on the weekend. Take a hike every Sunday. Those things will contribute way more to a durable enjoyment of life than a Burning Man.

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fsckboy a day ago | parent | prev [-]

>Burning Man is _not_ the problem

Burning Man is completely discretionary, you need to compute the total discretionary carbon footprint, and then the BM carbon footprint

	▲	gkoberger a day ago \| parent [-]
		Okay, then it's at about 0.0008% of discretionary global emissions. If we're going down the list of things to get upset about, Burning Man is pretty far down the list. Let people have fun.