Climate activists protested at Burning Man. Then the climate itself crashed the party

Attendees look at a double rainbow over flooding on a desert plain on Sept. 1, after heavy rains turned the annual Burning Man festival site in Nevada's Black Rock Desert into a mud pit. (Julie Jammot/AFP via Getty Images)

This year's Burning Man bacchanal started and ended with a traffic jam in the Nevada desert.

The first tangle of gridlock was caused by a coalition of activists protesting the alleged complacency among festivalgoers, known as "burners," over the global climate crisis that they argue must be addressed by systemic change beyond the boundaries of the Black Rock desert where the festival is held.