While in an extended artist residency at the Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona, Judy Natal planned to spend 4 days wandering through the annual Gem & Mineral show – the largest and oldest show in the world - in nearby Tucson. This just so happened to coincide with her reading Bill McKibben’s disturbing book Eaarth. In it, he clearly states, at the beginning of the book that “Earth as you knew it no longer exists. You now live on “Eaarth,” which humankind has damaged so much that it is no longer the same planet. The conditions that shaped civilization for centuries are permanently altered.” McKibben concludes: “Our hope depends, on scaling back—on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change—fundamental change—is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance.” With McKibben’s warnings ringing in her ears, the Gem Show was an incredible convergence of McKibben’s dire predictions and calls for accountability regarding resource extraction and over consumption with the Gem Show’s flaunting what apparently is perceived as the earth’s endless riches. Natal found barrel upon barrel, and table upon table of earth’s glorious, hidden treasures, ripped out of the earth without any regard for how much human need actually is. Overwhelmed by sheer volume of earth’s geological remains, Natal cut short her visit by the end of Day 1; no longer able to bear witness to the rape of the earth.