The design editor at the Chronicle, Zahid Sardar, wrote a story saying Burning Man was a failure at being green, and gave examples. I called to talk to him, but he didn’t call back. So I wrote with some feedback, and he wasn’t having any of it. Well, Zahid, back atcha:

(In order, I serve, he volleys, I return..)

—–Original Message—–
From: Tom Price [mailto:price_tom@hotmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2007 2:21 PM
To: Sardar, Zahid
Subject: Please contact me re: your last story

I called and left a voicemail last week but haven’t heard from you,
so I thought I’d email as well.

Your last story was wildly inaccurate and ill informed with regard to
Burning Man, and I’d appreciate an opportunity to clear up some
misconceptions. I don’t expect you to write about them, but I would
expect you’d like to know when you’ve made mistakes.

Please contact me at your earliest–I’m more than happy to pop down
to your office as well.

Best regards,

Tom Price
Environmental Manager
Burning Man 2007
801-712-5371

On Oct 7, 2007, at 3:15 PM, Sardar, Zahid wrote:

Thanks tom..i am sure there are all kinds of figures you can present but
I have to go by my personal experience on the playa and observation at
the ground level.. Many others who were at Burning Man concur that it
really is impossible to be green in that situation and I am sure you’ll
agree that Burning Man creates waste that does not need to happen at
all…
So, no matter how well you dispose of materials, the effort expends
valuable resources. And toxins in the air are another matter….

In any case, as you’ve discovered, on sfgate you have an open forum to
express your views and I see you have done that for readers who can also
see your things from your perspective. Thanks for the open discussion.
Do continue to communicate in that way.
Best regards
Zahid
From: price_tom@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: Please contact me re: your last story
Date: October 22, 2007 12:19:40 PM PDT
To: ZSardar@sfchronicle.com
Cc: mwhite@sfchronicle.com
Zahid,

Re: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/29/HOSLSBSV3.DTL&hw=zahid&sn=006&sc=194

If not doing your homework is your excuse, fine. But please, you must have the integrity to acknowledge you used a frame for your story, “Burning Man wasn’t green,” which wasn’t accurate. You used personal anecdotes, rather than research, and when confronted with truth that ran contrary to your column, you threw your hands up and said “well…” nothing, actually, because you know you wrote was inaccurate, but don’t want to admit it.

In a nutshell, you wrote that the efforts to “green” the Burning Man event this year were a failure, and that if people wanted real ideas, they should look to this design competition you wrote about. Yet every single example you gave was either extant at Burning Man as well, or was a ‘green’ innovation largely in name only.

You wrote ” Burning Man as a mass event failed in its ecological goals or expectations”, when in fact that wasn’t true–I know, since it was my job to both set and manage them both, and I’m happy to quantify them for you. Or you could choose to get that quantification from the dozens of national and international media outlets that covered that story; many of them are posted
here.

You wrote “100 design prototypes in five categories - Body, Home, Work, Play and Community - displayed in the center of Copenhagen, addressed solutions for mitigating global warming, the devastating effects of terrorism, poverty and its related health concerns, and for facilitating recycling and energy conservation,” yet your story listed no items which substantively address those topics. However, at Burning Man we had works addressing ALL of them.

You opined that there was breakthrough design at this Danish event that wasn’t extent at Burning Man. As an example, you wrote about a plastic tounge depressor. Excuse me? It’s a plastic version of the same old tongue depressor my doctor dad used for years. And it certainly does nothing to address climate change, terrorism, or poverty.

Your anecdotes prove my point. For example, your story highlighted the Tesla electric car as being part of this design competition’s contribution to the world being greener, vs. Burning Man, which by implication had no such innovation. Except there was a Tesla at BM, too ( a photograph of it there appeared last week in the Wall Street Journal). But since you and your friends didn’t happen across it on the playa, it wasn’t on your radar. Same thing happened, I can only assume, with the solar water filtration systems you wrote about, which were also at Burning Man.

Want to see innovative green design? How about carbon *negative* internal combustion engines? How about the exhaust eating, fuel creating algae farms? Both were at Burning Man, both are groundbreaking, open source ideas. Were they not innovative enough? Or just not shiny and plastic enough? Or was it, as seems the case, since your and your friends didn’t see them, you assumed ( wrongly ) they didn’t exist. Perhaps I should introduce you to
Herr Schrodinger and his cats.

Personal anecdotes are valuable, but to use them in place of facts is wrong. I can understand why you did it: you wrote a story with an unsubstantiated but topical theme, and felt clever for doing so.

But when called out….you punted. See your reply below, which is the equivalent of pointing and saying “what’s that over there?” to redirect attention.

Of course there was waste and use of materials at Burning Man–indeed, we said from day one the idea of making a temporary city in the middle of nowhere sustainable was farce. That said, just the attempt to “green” the place might yield some valuable information. As it did–a fact that was pointed out by the New York Times, the Sacramento Bee, Wired, CNET, Business 2.0, and dozens of other media outlets.

I share your affinity for design, and for journalism. And the reason I’m so put off by this, put plainly, is you blew it. There are two pieces to this puzzle: the substantive facts, and the conjectured opinion, and you mixed them up. When someone such as yourself makes sweeping statements not supported by facts, and then, when confronted with the facts, replies by saying ” I am sure there are all kinds of figures you can present but I have to go by my personal experience on the playa and observation at the ground level,” an implied but factually empty refutation–well, again, it’s clearly the sign of someone who’s not done their homework. And since you love the topic, and since you have the job, I’d have thought you’d be willing to do both.

Kind regards,

Tom Price