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PODCAST

Crazy Town

Post Carbon Institute

With equal parts humor and in-depth analysis, Asher, Rob, and Jason safeguard their sanity while probing crazy-making topics like climate change, overshoot, runaway capitalism, and why we’re all deluding ourselves. Each fortnightly episode helps you understand the “Great Unraveling” of our environmental and social systems and describes how we can make the transition to a sustainable and equitable world. If you’re someone who questions the trajectory of society and struggles to understand why most

science earth sciences

All Episodes

38:01

Banana Town: Where Michael Moore Stokes Controversy...

Crazy Town ·

2020/04/30

Paying attention to the buzz around Planet of the Humans, the new film by Michael Moore, is like standing in the middle of a three-ring circus. In ring #1 are the filmmakers, who raise critical questions about how renewable sources can power industrial society, but do so with questionable facts and mean-spirited attacks. In ring #2 are the left-wing enviros, who are barfing out lazy accusations of ecofascism and doing all they can to avoid addressing the film’s legitimate questions about population

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40:14

Mayor McCheese & Modern Medicine: Squandering Energy...

Crazy Town ·

2020/04/23

Some anthropologists argue that we're living in an anomalous historical period called High Energy Modernity, which will end sooner than we might like because of declining 'net energy.' It's an era of contradictions in which we've acquired unbelievable technology but put it to some of the most frivolous uses. In this episode, Rob, Asher, and Jason ask themselves, "If High Energy Modernity is on the way out, what will we miss most, and what will we be glad to see

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27:21

An Ecofascist and a Social Justice Warrior Walk into...

Crazy Town ·

2020/04/20

We've seen a frightening rise in recent years of violence and violent rhetoric by so-called ecofascists, who use environmental and resource limits arguments to justify hateful views around immigration and population. But does that mean those of us who are concerned about ecological limits should keep our mouths shut? Rob, Jason, and Asher explore why squelching discussions about limits might actually backfire and fuel ecofascist views instead, while wrestling with some of the skeletons in the

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54:37

Foreclosing on the Frackers: Coronavirus and the...

Crazy Town ·

2020/04/16

In the last episode Asher, Rob, and Jason discussed the danger of political denial and delusion limiting how well we respond to the climate crisis. This week we address the risk that another "d"--distraction--will keep us from recognizing the huge threats and opportunities the pandemic presents for our energy future. The lads also take a few minutes to pat themselves on the back (virtually, of course) for how much recent episodes, though recorded before the %@#*$^ virus hit, apply to our

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33:00

Delusion to the Left, Denial to the Right, and the...

Crazy Town ·

2020/04/09

How much of a stretch is it to compare autoimmune disease to the politics of climate change? Let's just say your hosts at Crazy Town were able to do it without any need for medical intervention. In this episode, Asher, Rob, and Jason examine how both ends of the political spectrum are getting it wrong and propose how you can start a new conversation. And it doesn't even have to involve your family disease history! Bonus: if you stay to the very end of the episode, you'll hear a

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35:52

I Can't Drive 35: the Politics of Rationing and its...

Crazy Town ·

2020/04/06

If you ask a hundred people what they want to do about climate change or other crises in the age of overshoot, approximately zero of them will enthusiastically call for rationing. But is rationing all that bad? If your grocery store is out of toilet paper thanks to pandemic-induced hoarding, maybe not so much. And considering our dangerous dependence on fossil fuels, maybe it's time to up the ante and establish a rationing program for oil and other sources of energy. Drop the hoarding

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42:14

Coronavirus and the Three Bears: the Right-Sized...

Crazy Town ·

2020/04/02

First of all, f*ck this virus. We don't want anyone to experience pain and suffering from coronavirus, but maybe there's a lesson to learn. In fact, even a simple story like Goldilocks and the Three Bears may have something valuable to teach us. Here at Crazy Town headquarters, we've been calling for pretty drastic changes to the economy to make it fair, resilient, and sustainable. But changes don't materialize just because you want them--usually you need a crisis to get people

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71:55

Our Naked Emperors Catch Coronavirus: How to Think...

Crazy Town ·

2020/03/30

Asher goes for a deep dive in his interview with investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed about how the novel coronavirus is rippling through the systems that make up modern society. To set the stage, they cover some heady territory, including Thomas Homer-Dixon’s “synchronous failure,” Joseph Tainter’s analysis of collapse and the diminishing marginal returns of complexity, C.S. Holling’s “adaptive cycle,” and Naomi Klein’s “shock doctrine.” With these frameworks of systems thinking in mind, they

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1:30

Announcement: Keeping up with Coronavirus

Crazy Town ·

2020/03/28

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39:07

The 10,000-Mile Cod, Insane Global Trade, and the...

Crazy Town ·

2020/03/26

What do Scottish cod, rubber duckies, rock phosphate, and shipping containers have in common? They all ride the oceans in really big boats as part of the insanity of today’s global trade. Trade seems like it should be a simple thing. I give you something, you give me something else in return, and we’re both better off. But our capitalism-on-steroids society has converted the simple into a Rube Goldberg machine of criss-crossing cargo ships, vulnerable supply chains, and just-in-time delivery, all so

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34:44

The Long and Shart of Extreme Travel as Climate Chaos...

Crazy Town ·

2020/03/19

Coronavirus has put the kibosh on frivolous travel for the moment, but we might want to do some reflecting before returning to business as usual. Prior to the outbreak, you were constantly told to put on your traveling shoes, cue up some good music for a journey (no, not the band Journey), and pack your bags. As long as costs stay down, we can fly to any destination for any purpose. Is your third cousin’s niece performing in a school play in Omaha? Wanna see the Great Barrier Reef before climate

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37:32

The Adventures of Bill and Lou: the Obscene Politics...

Crazy Town ·

2020/03/12

It’s easy to picture a group of social justice and environmental activists gathering in a circle. But these days, instead of holding hands and singing songs, they’re loading weapons and taking aim. Ahhhhh, the carnage! Why are progressives so eager to join a circular firing squad? Maybe this isn’t our best bet for solving climate change and the other wicked problems of the 21st century. Wouldn’t it be smarter to jettison the holier-than-thou act and find ways to collaborate? Asher, Rob, and Jason

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44:01

Band-Aid Town and the Psychology of Climate Change

Crazy Town ·

2019/05/30

Pop quiz! A friend of yours has just had an unfortunate chainsaw accident and cut a femoral artery: do you (a) make a tourniquet with your t-shirt, or (b) stick a Band-Aid on the wound? If you picked (b), congratulations! You've followed the instruction manual for humanity’s pathetic response to climate change. In this final episode of season 1, Asher, Rob, and Jason consider the psychology behind both inaction and effective action in these times of crisis. And for the very practical-minded,

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46:50

Helicopters and Kick the Can: Money in the Real World...

Crazy Town ·

2019/05/23

Have you ever wondered how dolphins feel about quantitative easing? OK, probably not, but it is important to consider the effects that money and monetary policy have on the real world of energy, society, and the environment. Nate Hagens joins Asher, Rob, and Jason to discuss said dolphins, a never-ending Grateful Dead concert, and the prospects of two mature solar panels giving birth to a little bitty baby solar panel. Oh, and Nate also offers coherent comments on how money works, how our economic

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37:46

My Dinner Is Stuck in Traffic: Fossil Fuels and the...

Crazy Town ·

2019/05/16

You know what drives Jason really crazy about auto traffic? No, it’s not the 42 hours per year that the average commuter wastes stuck in it or even the global warming pollution spewed, it’s the 3 BILLION (with a B people!) gallons of fuel that are wasted instead of helping with the transition of our food system. In this episode, Rob, Asher, and Jason talk about why fossil fuels are so embedded in our food system and how changes in the way we grow food might change where all of us live. This episode

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49:32

Tackling Inequality in the Economy, One Pair of...

Crazy Town ·

2019/05/09

Chuck Collins joins Asher, Rob, and Jason in Crazy Town to describe his startling journey from undercover trust fund kid to tireless campaigner for economic equality. Together they examine why Richie Rich, Donald Trump, Scrooge McDuck, and Jeff Bezos keep getting richer (hint: it might have something to do with the rigged economic system). And they discuss what it means to address inequality on a finite planet. Is FDR’s New Deal still the best playbook? For episode notes and more information, please

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37:50

They'll Think of Somethingisms: Is Technology Really...

Crazy Town ·

2019/05/02

The threats of overshoot and climate chaos loom larger by the day, but it’s all going to work out just fine. At least that’s what you hear from starry-eyed techno-optimists, hemp enthusiasts, and the output of ultra-hypothetical computer models. The silver bullet could come from outer space (e.g., mining asteroids or colonizing other worlds), it could come from the sky (turning air into carbon-sequestering rocks), or it could come from beneath our feet (building infrastructure out of hemp). Maybe we

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47:47

Mosquito-Flavored Popcorn: When Climate Scientists...

Crazy Town ·

2019/04/25

Did you know that we can lose half our food supply and it won’t matter? That’s because agriculture is only 3% of GDP, so there’s no need to worry about the effects of climate change on farming. Or so says the latest genius to win the Nobel Prize in economics. This “logic” is pretty darn disturbing on its own, but what happens when such muddled thinking comes to infest climate models? Besides causing Jason, Asher, and Rob to lose their minds (and their cool), it can lead to unrealistic optimism

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46:00

Deer Sinew and Beetle Biscuits: Raising Kids in the...

Crazy Town ·

2019/04/18

What do we want our children to do in the waning days of the fossil fuel frenzy and the early days of climate chaos? Being a good parent is hard enough under the best of circumstances, but it’s really difficult to know how much we should expose our kids to the realities of environmental meltdown and social injustice. In this episode Asher, Rob, and Jason explore what we could be teaching kids these days and debate which is the more valuable skill: being comfortable eating beetles or understanding

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38:07

Zombies, Magic Rocks, Collapse, and Other Fun...

Crazy Town ·

2019/04/11

Apocalypse is upon us, at least in movies, television shows, books, and even podcasts. Teen characters in youth literature are more likely to solve their differences by bow-hunting one another rather than hugging it out in the school hallways. In this episode, Asher, Rob, and Jason search for reasons why the movie theater is so obsessed with Armageddon and the political theater offers empty promises of infinite progress, when the reality is likely to be somewhere in the messy middle. For listeners

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165 results

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