Everyone Behaved Badly At Burning Man Climate Road Blockade

Screen grab from a video by Freedom News TV appears
to show a ranger drawing a weapon on climate protestors
at an ill-fated demonstration on the road to
Burning Man in Nevada.

Today we have a tale of everybody behaving badly over climate change, all involving an effort to disrupt a big event where pretty much everybody behaves badly.  

Social media and the news to some extent is all abuzz about a coalition of climate activist known as Seven Circles who recently blocked a road leaning to the annual Burning Man festival in the middle of nowhere, Nevada. 

Burning Man is a quirky (to say the least!) annual gathering that draws tens of thousands of people to a remote Nevada desert for arts, events and such. As organizers explain: "Our intention is to generate society (sic) that connects each individual to his or her creative powers to participation in community, to the larger realm of civic life, and to the even greater world of nature that exists beyond society."

Of course, like so many idealistic things, lots of other people want to join the fun without actually participating in the idea.  As The Guardian succinctly put it: "In recent years Burning Man has drifted from its hippy roots and has become better known for luxury RVs, wild orgies and Silicon Valley bros."

Touché. 

This year's Burning Man event is going on now, and if past years are any indication, at least 80,000 people are showing up for this thing. 

That brings us to the road blockade, which pretty much shut down the only route to the Burning Man bacchanal. (A full video of it is at the bottom of this post).

A coalition of activists blocked the road to Burning Man, some of them chaining themselves to a 28-foot long metal trailer they placed across the road. Their demands on Burning Man were actually pretty reasonable. Among them: They wanted the event to ban private jets, single use plastics and unlimited generator and propane use. 

All of which of course can contribute to climate change. 

THE BACKGROUND

Plenty of similar climate protests - mostly in Europe over the past couple of years - involved blocking busy highways.  I'm not sure how effective those protests have been, since they only serve to turn the stuck motorists off from the climate cause. That leaves the real powers behind climate change, like powerful corporations and governments, pretty much unscathed.

At least the Burning Man road blockade had more of a focused point. Let's face it, Burning Man  - and all the traffic going to and from it - put lots of carbon in the atmosphere.  

Vox reports that an internal Burning Man study says the annual event pumps 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. That's roughly how much carbon dioxide 20,000 cars push into the atmosphere each year. 

To be sacrilegious here, if the annual Burning Man didn't exist, humanity would continue on just fine. 

THE CLASH

Anyway, back to the Nevada road blockade. Soon enough, a long traffic jam formed on the remote paved road and those stuck behind the climate protest quickly became irate. Clashes quickly developed .

People, some exiting vehicles that have seen better days, others leaving their super big, expensive gas guzzling trucks and RVs confronted the protestors. 

They kept trying to forcibly remove the trailer, push demonstrators away, and attempt to direct traffic around the edges of the blocked road, and yelled and hurled insults at the activists. 

The activists blocking the road weren't exactly behaving wonderfully either. One kept insisting he has an absolute right to protest in the United States. Which is completely true. However, he wanted to be left alone to protest and block traffic as long as he wished. Even though for most people, there are consequences to direct action. Sometime you are moved, or arrested, unjustly or not.

Worse, as The Guardian notes, this demonstration took place on land owned by the Paiute Tribe, members of which told the activists they weren't allowed to demonstrate like that on tribal land.  The demonstrators were unmoved by this. 

What did move the protestors, literally, was the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribal police department, which wasn't messing around. They showed up just a little over a half hour after demonstrators first blocked the road. 

The police demanded they get off the road within 30 seconds, one of officers, apparently cosplaying Rambo or the Incredible Hulk,  floored the truck he was in and bashed through the trailer blocking the road, despite the fact that some protestors had chained themselves to it. 

The red-faced officer then pulled out a what appears to be a gun or taser and yelled, "Get on the ground, now!"    When one activist who was forced to the ground was picked up and escorted to a truck, you could see in the video her face was bloodied.

Though I understand people stuck in the European protests complain that the police there are too milquetoast, the officers in Nevada took it to the other extreme.  This scene wasn't exactly a tutorial video on how police should de-escalate things, that's for damn sure. a 

Bottom line,  police behaved badly, too.    

Badly enough so that the ranger who plowed through the barricade and drew the gun or taser might be in trouble. "The involved Ranger's conduct is under review," according to a press release from the Paiute Tribe. 

Of course that scene of aggressive police breaking up the blockade  got right wing media in a big happy dance. They like that sort of thing.  

"Everyone has been waiting for law enforcement to step in and establish authority" at climate action road blockades, huffed Fox News weekend host Lawrence Jones. 

Fox contributor Mollie Hemingway went further, saying, "I don't buy that these people care about the environment.....They only care about controlling the economy, people and destroying peoples' lives."

Hemingway didn't explain how the Burning Man climate road blockade destroyed anybody's life. But oh well. Hyperbole sells, right?

A large proportion of the comments on the YouTube video of the whole incident suggested a lot of people got off on watching the violence.  

DOES CLIMATE ACTION WORK?

I'm actually in favor of direct action, like protests, to rail against those who would block efforts to stop climate change. Sure, the Burning Man stunt got publicity, which is good I suppose.  Did it move the needle at all on climate change? I'm not so sure. 

What was Seven Circle's end game? I get why they were protesting Burning Man, but how did they expect the road confrontation to end, and when? Were they going to block the road for an hour? All day? All week? All year?

If so, did the demonstrators really think Burning Man organizers would cave to their demands that afternoon?  I guess my question is, was this demonstration just to call attention to the wastefulness and stupidity of Burning Man?

If so, great! If not, what the hell were they doing there, anyway?

Showy climate protests attract the news media.  But if you make the publicity negative, how effective are you?

I know there's a lot of good climate activists who are not trying to get into the newspapers. .But they are perhaps quietly pressuring politicians and corporations more and more to take the climate crisis seriously.

I know, too, that quiet efforts don't always work, and sometimes you have to make a bunch of noise.  But let's do it in a way where people not only hear the message, but actually listen to it and join the cause. 

Here's the video from Freedom News TV of the whole thing. It's a bit long, but the crapshow is still worth the watch, especially if you like all those "Karen" videos. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that:

Hilary Slamming California/Nevada; Nation's Middle Is Baking And Getting Even Hotter

In a still image from a video, extreme
flooding from Hurricane Hilary in 
Santa Rosalia, Mexico, on the
Baja Peninsula. This could well be
a preview of what will happen in
the southwestern U.S. today. 

 All eyes are on southwestern United States  today as Hurricane Hilary will sweep through today. 

By the time it reaches California, it will be downgraded to a tropical storm, but that doesn't matter in terms impacts. 

Huge areas of the West are under flood watches and warnings. Damaging  high winds are expected in Mexico, up through southern California and western Arizona, through Nevada, and possible up to the Idaho border.

Most of these winds will whistle over mountain passes. 

Rain is the real story, as unprecedented rains will be unleashed. 

NOAA's Weather Prediction Center said some normally arid areas will see a year's worth of rain in on day. Nevada is in line to have its wettest day anywhere in the state, as up to seven inches of rain are expected in some of the mountains in southern Nevada.

In these mountains, the most rain usually falls in the winter, on the west side of the slopes as storms come in from the Pacific Ocean. 

This will be different. The very arid east slopes will see the moisture come in on strong east and southeast winds. This is quite a rare occurrence. Places that practically get no rain could see it come down at a rate of up to three inches per hours. 

That's a recipe for not only for extreme flash floods, but debris flows and mud slides as well. 

The moisture from Hilary is streaming as far north as Oregon and Idaho, and flash floods are expected there as well. 

Rainfall forecasts in broad terms are about the same as they were in Vermont with the catastrophic flooding we had on July 10-11.

Believe it or not, despite the wet weather we had before that Vermont event, a little of that rainfall was able to soak into our ground, though much of it rain off and caused our flooding. In the deserts and rocks and ridges and mesas of southern California and Nevada, very little if any water will soak in.

It will all rush down hillsides into the settlements, small cities and resorts in California, Nevada and Arizona

The areas around big cities like Los Angeles and San Diego will have their share of problems with flooding, debris flows and wind damage. 

But the most extreme trouble is inland, through places like Death Valley, Coachella, San Bernardino, Palm Springs, California and Yuma, Arizona.  Extreme flooding is likely there. 

Joshua Tree and Death Valley national parks are of course closed. The irony is just three weeks ago, a wildfire was damaging Joshua Tree National Park. 

Heavy rains have already fallen in advance of Hilary, causing flooding in California and around Las Vegas.  Sin City should have some pretty intense floods from this one. 

There will be a lot of news on this later today, I'm sure. 

MIDWEST HEAT

Meanwhile, most of the nation's middle is in a long lasting heat wave that will last days, causing misery from Texas to the Dakotas. 

An intense dome of high pressure is parked over the region, causing the heat. Record high temperatures have already occurred, and more are on the way. 

Temperatures could go as high as 105 degrees as far north as parts of South Dakota. 

The longer a heat wave goes on, especially one with record highs like this one, the more dangerous it gets for human health.  The heat started in earnest Saturday, and will go into this Friday. 

In places like Texas and Louisiana, the heat started weeks ago and will only intensify over the next few days.

WILDFIRES

Meanwhile, the Pacific Northwest is suffering from dry winds, wildfires and smoke from those fires in the United States and up in British Columbia. 

An entire town of 5,000 people in eastern Washington State was evacuated, and the fire closed part of Interstate 90, a major route into and out of Spokane. One person has already reportedly died in the fires. 

Strong, dry east winds, partly from the remains of Hilary, are expected to worsen the fires today and tomorrow. 

QUIET FOR US THOUGH

The heat in the Midwest will be held at bay by a northwest air flow out of Canada that will keep the weather quiet here. I think for once, we in Vermont have practically the only boring weather in the nation. 

Skies this week will be partly cloudy on average. There might be a couple light showers Monday and perhaps something a little more substantial but not dangerous at the end of the week.  Since the air flow will be from the northwest it will be cool. 

This being the awful summer of 2023, you know we can't escape everything. Wildfire smoke from Canada's Northwest Territories and British Columbia is over us today, causing some haze and making the air quality not great.

This state of affairs should continue in varying intensities through the week. Haze from smoke will continue to be a frequent visitor to the Green Mountain State. 

Never-Ending Wildfire Season Persists In U.S; Consistent With Climate Change

Homes burn in Reno, Nevada Tuesday during a wildfire that
swept through part of the city. Photo by Jason Bean from
the Reno Gazette-Journal via the AP. 

 In the past, wildfires in the United States uses to subside substantially by mid-November due to the onset of more storminess, more rains, and across the north, more snow. 

Southern California would still get fires this time of year, as the rainy season is last to hit that neck of the woods, but most of the rest of the nation would be in the clear. 

Not this year. Not in recent years, either. 

This year, there's been plenty of evidence in recent days that the wildfire season is roaring on well past it's usual sell by date. 

A wind-whipped fire swept through parts of Reno, Nevada Tuesday, destroying five houses and damaging others, according to the Associated Press.  About 1,000 people, including the mayor of Reno, had to be evacuated because of the fire.  

Winds gusted as high as 78 mph in Reno Tuesday. 

Another fire in California,  well south and west of Reno, killed one person and destroyed several homes, according to the AP.

The high winds that fanned the fires came just ahead of the first real, welcome Pacific storm that dumped rain on northern California and, thankfully, in Reno. Some snow fell in the mountains. 

The rain squelched the fires for now, but long term dangers await the West, certainly including in California and Nevada. As the AP reports:

"Nevada is experiencing drought, with much of it extreme drought and it's moved in and out of such dry conditions for years. Numerous studies have linked bigger wildfires in America to climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas, which has made parts of the U.S. West much drier and more flammable."

Other fires are happening in rather unusual spots. There have been numerous wildfires in the Plains this fall. The latest occurred Tuesday northwest of Topeka, Kansas, where a blaze forced the evacuation of the small town of Delia, population about 175.

Today, the fire danger shifts to mid-Mississippi and lower Ohio River valleys, where low humidity, strong winds and dry conditions can easily stir up brush and wild fires. Again, this isn't the "traditional" place for such fires, but there you go. 

For us here in Vermont, there is, of course, no immediate danger of any wild fires.  It has been dry here, but there's been just enough rain and snow to keep things damp.  Our frequent bouts of strong, gusty winds, which is expected to continue over the coming days, won't matter much because of the relative dampness we have, typical of November. 

This isn't to say Vermont is permanently immune from brush or wild fires. We can still get them. Perhaps not on the scale of California, but still. 

Nationally, late season fires like these have become more common in the past decade or so. A November, 2011 fire destroyed 27 houses in pretty much the same area of Reno that was hit Tuesday. 

The trend is also toward fires in relatively  unexpected areas and seasons.  For instance, a huge wildfire, driven by winds of up to 80 mph, blasted through Gatlinburg, Tennessee and surrounding areas, killing 14 people, injuring 175 and destroying nearly 2,500 buildings on November 26, 2016.