About Tilbury House
Editorial Guidelines
Ordering Information
Musings on the Earth’s Future
Edward A. Myers
Edited by Melissa Waterman
Paperback, $15; ISBN 0-88448-263-4
6 x 9, 224 pages
Environmental
MAINE BOOKS:
America’s Kitchens —NewA Coastal Companion: A Gulf of Maine Almanac, from Canada to Cape Cod —New
In the Shadow of the Eagle: A Tribal Representative in Maine —New
North by Northeast: Wabanaki, Akwesasne Mohawk, and Tuscarora Traditional Arts —New
Partners in Wilderness: Buzz Caverly and Baxter State Park —New
Patriarch of Maine Shipbuilding: The Life and Ships of Gardiner G. Deering—New
Remarkable Americans: The Washburn Family —New
Sharing the Ocean: Stories of Science, Politics, and Ownership from America's Oldest Industry —New
A1 Diner
Antiqueman's Diary
The Camera’s Coast: Historic Images of Ship and Shore in New England
Catboat Era, The
Changing Maine
Confluence: Merrymeeting Bay
Continental Liar from the State of Maine: James G. Blaine
Day's Work, A (Vol. I)
Day's Work, A (Vol. II)
Doryman's Day, A
Down on the Island, Up on the Main
Downeast: A Maritime History of Maine
Eminent Mainers
Fly Rod Crosby
Interrupted Forest, The
Islands of the Mid-Maine Coast, Vol. I
Islands of the Mid-Maine Coast, Vol. II
Islands of the Mid-Maine Coast, Vol. IV
Journalism Matters
Just One More Thing, Doc
Letters from Sea
Life Between the Tides
Little Pine to King Spruce
Maine Hamlet, A
Maine Made Guns & Their Makers
Maine's Visible Black History
Not Your Average Bear
Old Town Canoe, The
On Wilderness
One Man's Meat
Place on Water, A
Rangeley and Its Region, The
Red right Returning
Rediscovering S. P. Rolt Triscott
Same Great Struggle, The
Sea Struck
Shipyard in Maine, A
Snow Squall
That Yankee Cat
Turnaround
Unsettled Future, Unsettled Past
Upriver Passamaquoddy, An
Voyage of Archangell, The
Voyage of Detroit, The
Voyages: A Maine Franco-American Reader
While You're Here, Doc
Wood and Canvas Canoe, The
Worthy of the Sea: K. Aage Nielsen and His Legacy of Yacht Design
Ed Myers (1917-2002) was a remarkable man who focused his capacious mind and learning on the issue of the earth’s future. A realist with an engaging sense of humor, he wrote dozens of articles, letters, sermons, and diatribes on topics ranging from global climate change to the benefits of not smoking. Running throughout all his writings was his belief that the earth’s long-term health could only be assured, if we, its inhabitants, changed our behavior. And he firmly believed we had the means and the will to do so.
Ed Myers saw the humor in almost everything that happened, but he was deadly serious about saving the planet and turning it over to successive generations in better shape than he found it. Nobody forgot Ed Myers-or his message.
So we are presently engaged in a gigantic planetary chemical experiment to see how much CO2 and its global effects we can stand. When the experiment is complete, there won’t be anybody around to report on it. The Creation, in writer Annie Dillard’s phrase, will be playing to an empty house. This dreary prospect does not have to happen. At the end of the nineteenth century, we made a choice, or rather, had it made for us. We would run the world on fossil fuels. It proved to be a very successful choice for a runaway industrial society and worked well, in its own way, for about a century. But for the long term the choice was, in a word, lousy. Now we have a chance to turn it around. Our only chance.Additional commentary and updates are provided by Peter Shelley (Conservation Law Foundation); Don Hudson (Chewonki Foundation); Tom Chappell (Tom’s of Maine); Robin Alden; and Melissa Waterman.
Ed Myers was a graduate of Princeton, served in the army during World War II, and with his wife Julia settled in Damariscotta, Maine, in 1949. In the 1950s he founded and operated Saltwater Farm and pioneered in the business of shipping lobsters. In 1959 he restored Cottrell Wharf as a yacht landing and restaurant, and in 1973 he established Abandoned Farm, North America’s first mussel cultivation operations. He helped write many of the state aquaculture laws and policies and was granted the state’s first aquaculture license. Ed wrote numerous columns over the years and was active in peace and anti-nuclear organizations and local churches. On the river he was often seen rowing a dory while wearing a Brooks Brothers’ shirt, a regimental striped bow tie, and an old pair of mud-encrusted boots, beaming a ceaseless smile.
|