All Americans know what a boomtown is: the overnight explosion of population and businesses based on the potential for great wealth. They also recognize a ghost town: abandoned and derelict buildings, rusting tools, and sagebrush-filled streets. I wanted to document what was left of a once thriving gold-mining town – Rhyolite, Nevada, and to present a picture of a future where the environment is so degraded that desert life exists as nothing but a ghost of its former presence. I then offer a choice: We can begin making investments to improve our social and physical atmospheres or we can continue to seek short-term financial gains. More and bigger houses, cars, jewels and bank accounts for the few cannot trump expenditures on the environment, education, infrastructure, job training and healthcare for the many. Failure to address these contemporary problems will lead to the fatal decline in the habitability of our terrestrial “boomtown”.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” —Native American Proverb
I would like to thank 350.org for their interest in this project. All artist’s proceeds from Busted go to their organization.
