Black Rock Solar, Burning Man’s sister non-profit dedicated to expanding the use of renewable energy through installation, art, education, and job training, is pleased to announce that Patrick (Paddy) McCully has joined Black Rock Solar, taking on the role of Executive Director.

Paddy is originally from Newtownards, Northern Ireland. He joins BRS from International Rivers, where he spent 17 years (six of them as Executive Director) working to protect rivers around the world from destructive dams and to promote human rights and sustainable water and energy practices.

Before coming to the United States in 1993, he worked with environmental non-profits in the UK and Uruguay. Paddy is on the advisory boards of two Indian non-profits and was formerly on the steering committee of the UN Environment Program’s Dams and Development Project. His book Silenced Rivers: The Ecology and Politics of Large Dams, described by prize-winning Indian author Arundhati Roy as a “dazzling book,” has been translated into five languages.

With such an illustrious career in the environmental non-profit arena, and being a Burner himself, Black Rock Solar is very excited to have Paddy join the team, helping to further its mission.

For more information about Black Rock Solar, please visit their website.

One side of the Burning Man world that participants rarely have a chance to …well…participate in, is the permitting process we go through to have our event on federal, public land.  Well, here is your chance.

2010 marks the last year of Burning Man’s current 5-year Special Recreation Permit from the Bureau of Land Management. Currently, Black Rock City, LLC is applying for a new five-year permit to hold the event from 2011-2015. The Bureau of Land Management is seeking public comments as part of the process of issuing the new permit. A record of documented, positive and constructive comments from persons or organizations within the Burning Man community will help BLM in reaching its decision.

In particular, as BLM’s role is to protect public land and those that use it,  the positive impacts of Burning Man on the greater public, such as economic benefits to Northern Nevada, or  education about Leave No Trace and other environmental messaging, would be most helpful. So if you’re part of a charity, business or other organization that benefits from the Burning Man event, then we encourage you to contribute to the decision-making process.  Also, if you’ve learned environmental stewardship, the value of volunteering, or any of the other infinite ways that Burning Man changes people’s lives positively then please let your voice be heard. Please note that though we wholeheartedly agree, comments such as “Burning Man is cool,” or “I love Burning Man,” won’t really add much to the information, and will inadvertently cause more work for BLM in the public comment process. In addition, this is not the right forum for commenting on BLM Law Enforcement at Burning Man, but if you would like to do so, please email legal here: legal (at) burningman.com.  We want everyone’s voice to be heard, but we also want to be efficient about getting the right kind of information to the BLM. Please respect the valuable time that BLM is putting into this formidable project, in an effort to listen to the voices of the people we have affected.

If you would like to submit a written comment then please do so by December 13th. Letters can be sent to:Cory Roegner, Attn: Burning Man Permit Renewal, BLM Black Rock Field Office, 5100 E. Winnemucca Blvd., Winnemucca, NV 89445-2921. Or via email to wfoweb here: wfoweb (at) nv.blm.gov.  Please be sure to put “Burning Man Permit Renewaql (Roegner)” in the subject line.

There will also be three public meetings in Northern Nevada, hosted by BLM. For more information on the meetings, as well as the permit process in general please visit: http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/wfo/blm_information/nepa0/recreation/burning_man.html

Oil Spill Mapping in the Gulf Coast Region Photo: Stewart Long

Last week Andrew Johnstone of Burning Man Earth said:

This morning Stewart Long, who does all our hi res aerial stitching, flies out to Louisiana with equipment designed for BRC to provide imagery for the clean up efforts. I am again humbled that our efforts to record Black Rock City are applied to real world problems to make a tangible difference.

I knew that Burners around the world would want to know more about how Burners are taking it upon themselves to make a difference. Stewart says we can follow their mapping of the oil spill at Grassroots Mapping.  And here is Stewart’s report posted today:

One week into the grassroots mapping of the Gulf of Mexico crisis, the first local New Orleans team is now in place. Support coming in from regional agencies, fishermen, universities, various media: PBS: DIY Mappers.

Hi there,

Greetings from New Orleans, where it’s not quite hot yet, the French Quarter Fest is raging, and all around the Lower Ninth Ward, the idea of sustainability and locally-grown vegetables is sprouting up like a mess o’ collard green seedlings.

Please take a minute to read the repost below and vote for a friend of Burners Without Borders NOLA — Jenga Mwendo — to win the $5k necessary to restore the blighted cottage next to our neighborhood community garden and transform it into an education center (and storage). It’ll be your good deed for the day!

Thanks,
BWB NOLA

Jenga and Mama Patsy cleaning up the garden in the early days. That's the cottage in the background. Git 'r dun!

From Jenga:

Greetings! On behalf of the Backyard Gardener’s Network, the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association Garden Committee and the entire Lower Ninth Ward community, I ask for your help to win the Cox Conserves Heroes contest. Please go here and vote for me, Jenga Mwendo! Cox Conserves Heroes is a contest that awards an “environmental hero” $5000 to his/her charity of choice. If I win, the money will go towards renovating a blighted cottage next door to our community garden for use as a storage/education garden center. I am the only contestant representing a project in the Lower Ninth Ward, the community devastated most by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Vote Now! Spread the word! Vote as many times as you want!! Thanks!

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Hi. I’m a DPW / Gate clowngineer who now lives with some other “derelicte” members of D.I.Y. society, building up a Katrina-bombed house in the Holy Cross neighborhood of New Orleans. The Holy Cross is the sliver-by-the-river area of the Lower 9th Ward which didn’t get crushed by a tsunami shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit landfall. All around our neighborhood, during the day, you can hear hammering and sawing and the shouts of construction workers complaining about heat and sun. It sounds like a Deadwood background reel, or Black Rock City being built.

Meanwhile, we’re living with no refrigerator for the moment. Also, zero grocery stores exist within biking distance — reasonable biking distance — so for the past we-don’t-know-how-many days in a row, when we’re not being fed at the fancy-pants restaurants at which we toil, we partake of the HOLY CROSS BREAKFAST: Fried chicken and a pickle.
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The Shipyard has been home, storage or workspace for many Burning Man installations; Kiki Petit’s Eugiera, Nates Smiths first Fire Vortex, Ryon Gesink’s Eye Arch and Fuck Machine, Jim Mason’s Stockpuppets v2 and ICP, Jake Lyall’s Riot wheel, Borg 2, Liam McNamara’s Clocktower,  Neverwas Haul, Lepidodgera by Rachel Norman, Mike Thielvoldt, Lira Filippini, and Jake Haskell.  Currently, projects for this year’s Burning Man, FishBug and Gee-Gnome, are busily being completed.  Non-Burning Man projects abounded here as well: Girlmark’s Jonny Appleseed processor, Kristies Flyer by Liam Mcnamara, Matt Synder, Peter Luka, Shannon O’Hare and Kimric Smythe, Exxon Valdez Disaster, the Peef-O-Matic powertainer off-grid solar biodiesel 3 phase power system, Destroy the Universe 4 and 2, Dan Goldwater’s Monkeylectric Project, Osseus Labyrint’s Modern Promethius performance (developed here), Barbara Kruse’s Firebirdees built as part of Therm and the Escape From Berkeley (by any non-petroleum means necessary) road rally.

Egeria by Kiki Pettit photo by meuon

Clockworks by Liam McNamara and crew photo by Gabe Kirchheimer

Eye Archway by Ryon Gesink Photo by Mike Woolson

In the beginning of its life, The Shipyard confounded the logic of proper Berkeley Building Department etiquette, by falling in love with the flexibility and durability of the Shipping Container.  Unfortunately, in Berkeley’s eyes, the shipping containers the artists favored as architecture were not considered proper building material.  This innocent misunderstanding prompted the city to turn off power to the facility.  Berkeley being in the dark as to the renegade gang that occupied The Shipyard, did not realize the avalanche of creativity and power hacking they instigated by pulling the plug.  The artists, scientists, gearheads and junkyard enthusiasts, promptly started making their own power and ran the facility off grid for five years.

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ADOPT-A-DIRTBAG: Why not send a DPW / Gate / Burning Dude desert-rat hooligan (or yourself) to New Orleans to help rebuild with Lowernine.org?

Hurricane Katrina still haunts New Orleans, and she likely always will. She is an ogre. She is an abusive ex-lover out on parole. She is the backdrop, the turning point, the literal dark cloud hanging over everyone’s past, seeping out into the present, humidifying the future. Her human survivors remain buoyant — awash with both what-can-you-do resignation and silver-lining contentment.

Katrina gave America the biggest mother-nature bitch-slapping in its history … right upside this murderous and gorgeous city’s face. 80 percent of New Orleans flooded, and 1500 people died — half as many humans as the ones who perished on September 11th, 2001. Then, while the government callously sat back and watched in catatonia — like an 8-year-old pouring gasoline on an ant-hill — the good people of the United States mobilized to help.

When the storm hit, for a blessedly large number of out-of-towners, horrified empathy morphed into positive action.

Rick's the one in the dark grey T-shirt

In 2006, Rick Prose chaperoned a church trip from Maine down to post-Katrina New Orleans with his daughter’s youth group. Working mostly in the Gentilly area, Prose shot some video of a man scavenging gutting debris on the curb. The scavenger said something like: “You think it’s bad over here … Wanna come see my house in the Lower 9th Ward?”

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