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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

62:57

Colonizing the Sky: The Untold Environmental Toll of...

Crazy Town ·

2022/05/04

Skyscrapers have sprouted like mushrooms in our urban landscapes. But in an environmentally depleted, energy-pinched era, we need to take a closer look at the downsides of movin' on up to the sky. We especially need to pay attention to embodied energy and all the features required to keep skyscrapers standing: uninterrupted supplies of electricity, reliable water treatment systems, functional waste removal, and mechanized transport. It’s time to question the quixotic quest to build ever higher,

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63:55

The Bright Side Through Rose-Tinted Glasses: How...

Crazy Town ·

2022/04/27

Welcome to the seductive, but regrettable world of unquestioned positive thinking, where faith healers, BS slingers, pseudoscientists, and get-rich-quick schemers all peddle the same basic message: think positively, and it’ll all work out. The problem: there’s no room for critical thinking and no call to do the hard work of finding real responses to climate change, injustice, biodiversity loss, and planetary overshoot. Sure, a rosy outlook can be useful in some situations, but it’s no way to address

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52:42

Lord of the Swans: The Tragedy of the Enclosure of...

Crazy Town ·

2022/04/20

The “tragedy of the commons” is an idea that has so thoroughly seeped into culture and law that it seems normal for people and corporations to own land, water, and even whole ecosystems. But there’s a BIG problem: the “tragedy” part of it has been debunked – it really should be the triumph of the commons. Learn the origin story of privatization and explore the true meaning of commons and how to manage them for sustainability and equity. Also check out our suggestions for championing the commons

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33:55

Bonus: The Legal Legacy of Colonization with Sherri...

Crazy Town ·

2022/04/13

Indigenous rights lawyer, leader, and author Sherri Mitchell describes how the Christian Doctrines of Discovery made their way from 15th-century European religious leaders into the U.S. legal system. She elaborates on how the U.S. government justified centuries of colonization and dispossession of Indigenous lands, with implications for social justice and environmental health. And Sherri offers important ideas for decolonizing the mind and healing the gaping wound that runs right through the middle

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49:12

A Load of Papal Bull: Greenlighting Colonization and...

Crazy Town ·

2022/04/06

In 1493 the most corrupt (and orgy-throwing) pope of all time gave the nod of approval for wealth-seeking Europeans to trample the rest of the world. As seafaring colonizers divvied up the world and justified their actions using the Doctrine of Discovery, the era of land-grabbing imperialism led to outrageous exploitation of Indigenous peoples and ecosystems. Learn why the main ingredients in the recipe for souffle in Noumea are colonization, extraction, and globalization. For episode notes and more

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57:17

Injustice for All: The Invention of Racism to Justify...

Crazy Town ·

2022/03/30

When greedy power-trippers perpetrate unspeakable acts of exploitation, they often rationalize their loathsome acts after the fact. Such is the case with the Atlantic slave trade. European kidnappers of African people used racism to justify slavery and enforce a shameful system of forced labor and a disgraceful social hierarchy. Learn how the ideas of 15th-century Europe have reverberated through the centuries and catch up on some of the hopeful antiracist things happening to overcome the tragic

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33:46

Bonus: Patriarchy and the Cultural Roots of the...

Crazy Town ·

2022/03/23

Investigative journalist and podcaster Amy Westervelt talks with Asher about the cultural roots of the climate crisis. Their wide-ranging conversation covers many stop-and-make-you-think ideas about sustainability, racial and gender equality, economic systems, the social contract, and philosophy over a long sweep of history. Stick around for the conclusion in which Amy considers the mismatch between the need for immediate action on climate change versus the slower-moving cultural and behavioral

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55:53

A Day at the Zoo Is No Walk in the Park:...

Crazy Town ·

2022/03/16

Michael Jackson had a private zoo with elephants, lions, tigers, orangutans, and more. Michael Vick bankrolled and organized a dog fighting ring. But you don’t have to be named “Michael” to have an exploitative relationship with animals. Going back thousands of years, humans have exhibited a sordid history of abusing animals (and by extension, nature and the environment) often just for the purpose of showing off. The types and depths of exploitation have changed over time, and now we’re at a

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48:00

The Taming of the Slough: Humanity's History of...

Crazy Town ·

2022/03/09

People have a long history of trying to control water, like when the Roman emperor Plumpus Crackus built the Cloaca Maxima (only one of those names is made up) to transfer sewage into the Tiber River. From irrigating fields to building canals to damming waterways to bringing water into our buildings, we've engineered more and more complex ways to tame water. And in so doing, we've changed the environment, both aquatic and terrestrial, and we've changed the course of human history

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41:11

Bonus: Climate Sabotage with Tim DeChristopher

Crazy Town ·

2022/02/25

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2:26

Season 4 Announcement

Crazy Town ·

2022/02/18

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53:04

Bonus: Stop Saving the Planet with Jenny Price

Crazy Town ·

2022/01/26

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13:36

Bonus: Holiday Guide for the Perplexed

Crazy Town ·

2021/12/15

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66:31

Bonus: It's All Paradox with Douglas Rushkoff

Crazy Town ·

2021/11/24

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40:49

Bonus: Oceans of Knowledge with Sylvia Earle

Crazy Town ·

2021/10/27

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54:55

Bonus: What Could Possibly Go Right with Vicki Robin

Crazy Town ·

2021/09/29

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62:01

Bonus: Galactic-Scale Energy with Tom Murphy

Crazy Town ·

2021/08/25

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50:13

Bonus: Climate Craziness with Peter Kalmus

Crazy Town ·

2021/07/28

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57:08

Hidden Drivers Wrap-up, or... the Story of the...

Crazy Town ·

2021/06/23

It's the end of the world as we know it. OK, maybe not just yet, but it is the end of Crazy Town's third season. If you've been able to look past some of the more absurd parts of the podcast, perhaps you've noticed a pattern. In examining hidden drivers behind humanity's sustainability predicament, we grouped the drivers into three categories: human behavior, social constructs, and features of biophysical reality. Given our penchant for covering anxiety-inducing topics, we

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55:21

Maximum Power and Scarcity, or... the Story of the...

Crazy Town ·

2021/06/16

The "maximum power principle" may sound like the doctrine of an evil supervillain, but it actually applies to all living creatures. The principle states that biological systems organize to increase power whenever constraints allow. Given the way humans adhere to this principle, especially by overexploiting fossil fuels, we often do behave like supervillains, wielding power in wildly irresponsible ways and triggering climate change, biodiversity loss, and other aspects of our sustainability

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152 results

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