Ed Ayres

Ed Ayres is the founder of Running Times magazine and former editor of Worldwatch, a monthly environmental magazine frequently quoted by textbooks and the mainstream news media. Ayres is also an ultramarathon runner and sculptor who has made artwork out of wood, geodes, glass bottles, and other objects. Animals are a frequent theme in his artwork.

In 1999, Ayres wrote God's Last Offer: Negotiating for a Sustainable Future[1], a book that warns of four "spikes," out-of-control phenemona that threaten the biosphere. These include rising carbon gas emissions, the rate of biological extinctions, unsustainable consumption, and the exploding human population. The publisher, Four Walls Eight Windows, declined to produce as many copies for the initial run as Ayres requested, much to his annoyance. Word of mouth spread rapidly and the book soon sold out.

Ayres considered the environmental movement to be mostly a failure, with the exception of some notable successes on issues such as ozone depletion. He retired from his position at the Worldwatch Institute in 2004. In 2005, he and his wife, Sharon, were planning to move from Northern Virginia to California.

Reference

• Hymas, Lisa: Worldwatch kerfuffle, Grist Magazine, 23 Nov. 2004.