Pirate's Cove

Are we really concerned over a bunch of rich kids, celebs, and people overspending on a terrible gathering in the desert, fueled by drugs, sex, and too much social media, dealing with weather?

At Burning Man, the Weather Can Feel Biblical. Will Climate Change Make It Even Worse?

Mariska Keasberry and her crew of builders got to Burning Man in Nevada early this year. As they finished setting up camp — in anticipation of more than 100 people joining their setup in the coming days — they felt proud of their efforts.

But then, from a distance, they saw a wall of white approaching them — fast.

For the next two hours, as the sandstorm enveloped them, they tried to save what they had just built. But the raging dust “ended up taking out about 70% of our infrastructure,” Keasberry said.

Over the course of the week, they would rebuild their camp again and again.

“In some ways, this felt a little bit like ‘Building Man,’” said Keasberry, an Oakland resident who has been going to the festival since 2016 and now co-leads a camp called The Heart Collective.

Wait, sandstorms in the desert? Really?

This year, the sandstorm was followed by several days of rain and near-triple-digit heat. And multiple years of this kind of extreme weather on the playa — including the torrential rain that created a “mudpocalypse” in 2023 — have caused some attendees to question whether to return to Black Rock Desert. They’re also wondering if human-caused climate change is threatening the viability of future burns.

You mean weather that happens in that area? None of this is unusual. But, if they’re really concerned, perhaps they will stop using all those fossil fueled vehicles to travel to this idiocy.

From the outside in — or even the inside out — the weather at this year’s burn sure looked biblical. Burning Man officials state clearly on their website to “be prepared for volatile extremes,” including excessive heat, freezing temperatures, swift thunderstorms, up to 70 mph winds and intense dust storms. The Burning Man Project, the nonprofit that organizes the festival each year, did not respond to KQED’s request for comment.

OK, once the cultists throw in “freezing temperatures” I’m done. This is a cult.