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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

43:24

Finding Crazy Town Part 5: Adapting to the Adaptive...

Crazy Town ·

2026/09/23

What if collapse isn't the end of the story but part of a larger cycle?In Part 5 of our six-part summer series, Finding Crazy Town, producer Alex Leff continues his investigation into the mysterious disappearance of Jason Bradford, Rob Dietz, and Asher Miller. Following clues from the Crazy Town archives leads to the adaptive cycle: a framework from ecology that describes how complex systems move through growth, maturity, collapse, and reorganization.From the Titanic and lifeboats to Ernest

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31:22

Finding Crazy Town Part 4: The Myth of Progress - Are...

Crazy Town ·

2026/09/09

What if the story we tell ourselves about progress is wrong?In Part 4 of our six-part summer series, Finding Crazy Town, producer Alex Leff continues his investigation into the mysterious disappearance of Jason Bradford, Rob Dietz, and Asher Miller. Following clues from the Crazy Town archives, Alex begins questioning one of the most deeply held assumptions of modern society: that history is a story of continual progress.From rising life expectancy and GDP to expanding material wealth and

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47:32

Finding Crazy Town Part 3: Unlimited Limits to Growth

Crazy Town ·

2026/08/26

Can our economy keep growing forever on a finite planet?In this third installment of Finding Crazy Town, we explore the idea of exponential economic growth, why economists and politicians have become so committed to it, and what happens when our economic models fail to account for the environmental systems that make the economy possible.Along the way, Jason, Rob, and Asher revisit the problems they see in conventional economics, Jason recounts the experience that sent him down the rabbit hole of

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44:13

Finding Crazy Town Part 2: Simplifying Complexity

Crazy Town ·

2026/08/12

What if the greatest strength of modern civilization—its incredible complexity—is also its greatest weakness?In Part 2 of our six-part summer series, Finding Crazy Town, producer Alex Leff continues investigating the mysterious disappearance of Jason Bradford, Rob Dietz, and Asher Miller. Following the trail leads from a simple podcast microphone into the astonishing complexity of modern techno-industrial civilization, where every solution creates new layers of coordination, specialization, and

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41:18

Remembering Richard Heinberg: The Power Podcast

Crazy Town ·

2026/08/06

The world has lost a voice of clear, truth-telling wisdom—a man whose work reached millions of people and fundamentally changed the lives of thousands.Richard Heinberg was regarded as one of the world’s foremost advocates for a shift away from our current reliance on fossil fuels. He was Senior Fellow of Post Carbon Institute for nearly twenty years. Richard was the author of fourteen books, including some of the seminal works on society’s current energy and environmental sustainability crisis.Crazy

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44:13

Finding Crazy Town Part 1: The Straight of Everything

Crazy Town ·

2026/07/15

What happens when the global economy depends on fish traveling 10,000 miles, oil flowing through a single strait, and enough cheap fossil fuel energy to build civilizations that previous generations couldn't even imagine?In Part 1 of our six-part summer series, producer Alex Leff begins investigating the mysterious disappearance of Jason Bradford, Rob Dietz, and Asher Miller. Following the clues leads to international shipping, global trade, and the hidden energy that powers modern civilization

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01:10:52

Gaslit by the Four Horsemen: Maddening Signs of the...

Crazy Town ·

2026/07/01

With the churn of daily news growing more apocalyptic by the headline, and with earth scientists competing ferociously for the title of “gloomiest doomer,” it’s time for some fun (or at least making fun) with a new fantasy-football-style draft. This time, Jason, Rob, and Asher are making their way through their top 3 signs of civilizational collapse, in 3 categories: Earth systems, pop culture, and politics. But they refuse to remain mired in the muck. Each draft pick has to be accompanied by a

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58:36

What Lies Beneath: AMOC, El Niño, & Climate Chaos...

Crazy Town ·

2026/06/17

It’d be easy, with the clusterf**k of crazy-making economic, geopolitical, and democracy-in-decline news dominating the scene, to forget that the unraveling of environmental systems waits for no person. That’s why we’ve asked Emily Schoerning to return to Crazy Town. Asher and Emily sit down together (uh, virtually) to discuss the oceanic dynamics – from worrisome to downright apocalyptic – that could make the Strait of Hormuz disruption look like a five-minute wait at the Starbucks drive-thru. In

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01:55

Join the 2026 Crazy Town Hall

Crazy Town ·

2026/06/10

Join your fellow Crazy Townies by registering at resilience.org/crazytownhallThe Crazy Town Hall is a live, online get-together for our most engaged listeners, affectionately known as Crazy Townies. The Town Hall is your chance to hang out with Jason, Rob, and Asher – and your fellow Crazy Townies – as we continue our arduous journey to the center of a collapsing techno-industrial, politically incompetent civilization. This 75-minute event will feature plenty of lampoonery, fun pop quizzes, and even

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01:04:59

The Hypocrite’s Guide to the Galaxy: Muddling Toward...

Crazy Town ·

2026/06/03

Is hypocrisy the one thing that can grow infinitely on our finite planet? When you learn that humanity’s fossil fuel burning, including your own, is contributing to climate chaos, what can you do? When you understand that economic growth and consumption are causing habitat loss and the sixth mass extinction, can you opt out? As long as you are embedded in an unsustainable society, it’s hard not to be a hypocrite. At the same time, dropping out seems isolating and ineffective, if you can even do it

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57:47

The Lighter Side of Dark Ages with Chris Smaje

Crazy Town ·

2026/05/20

Chris Smaje visits Crazy Town for some farmer-to-farmer straight talk with Jason Bradford. Are these two long lost cousins? Both dropped out of academia years ago to become philosophizing farmers (can we call them “pharmers” with a “ph,” as in PhD?!?). Chris’s latest book, Finding Lights in a Dark Age: Sharing Land, Work and Craft explores how we can move from modernity’s unsustainable political economy toward a re-organization of society, driven by communities and local food systems. In this

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58:06

Take Me to the River: Getting Rid of Deadbeat Dams

Crazy Town ·

2026/05/06

People REALLY love their impervious surfaces. Concrete structures practically permeate human-built landscapes. Rather than layering ever more concrete on top of living soils, in waterways, and all over the countryside, what if we re-established our connection with natural ecosystems and put a stop to the concrete madness? One of the most inspiring developments of environmental and cultural restoration involves the cleanup of tons and tons of concrete. We’re talking dam removal today. So grab a

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53:12

Mailbag: The Crazy Townies Speak!

Crazy Town ·

2026/04/22

It’s really refreshing to hear from you, our listeners and fellow strugglers living in high-energy modernity (affectionately known as Crazy Townies). This mailbag episode offers the element of surprise, as it gives Jason, Rob, and Asher a chance to respond with delight and spontaneity to your questions and comments. Join the guys as they apply their dubious intellectual powers, subpar comedic talents, and underwhelming insights to your Crazy Townie queries. Originally recorded on

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51:10

Birdbrained: When Nature and Technology Collide

Crazy Town ·

2026/04/08

What happens when technology and competition start to invade our experiences in nature? For example, what if you’re so focused on documenting a bird sighting in your iPhone app that you fail to appreciate the majestic songs of the bushtit or dickcissel on the branch in front of you? In this episode, Jason, Rob, and Asher explore the world of competitive birding, the relationship between those who love nature and the technology they use to connect to it, and how even the most gentle of shared

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54:29

Being Team Human in Crazy Town

Crazy Town ·

2026/03/25

Have you ever had that feeling in your gut, when you suddenly realize that the person you’re talking with might have a screw or two loose? What about when you’re the one others are trying to slowly back away from at the punch bowl? The question of who’s the real nut often arises for us collapse-aware folks living here in Crazy Town. Since Mr. Peanut is no longer returning their phone calls, Rob, Jason, and Asher invite Douglas Rushkoff, media theorist, professor, and host of the Team Human Podcast

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40:40

You Ain’t Gonna Live Forever: The Dos and Don’ts of...

Crazy Town ·

2026/03/11

Immortality projects represent an often irrational, and sometimes even unconscious, way to tamp down anxiety about death. There are some shocking examples of people, especially those with lots and lots of money, who try to leave some sort of mark in a futile attempt to keep from facing death. In this episode, we run a special fantasy-football style draft to take a look at immortality projects, some horrendous, but some with positive effects. Originally recorded on February 6,

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01:01:04

Crazy Town Classics - Terror Management Theory

Crazy Town ·

2026/02/25

What can we learn about death from the X-Men, small screaming rodents, and unwitting college students in psychology experiments? It turns out that the fear of death (or death anxiety) affects human behavior in all sorts of surprising and deeply troubling ways. Especially disconcerting is the way such fear entices people to cling to cultural beliefs so tightly that they will attack anything or anyone they perceive as a threat to their beliefs. And extra-super-duper disconcerting is how unaware most

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55:21

Getting Real about Resiliency with Emily Schoerning

Crazy Town ·

2026/02/11

What if there were a news outlet that actually covered the most important environmental stories of our time? Dr. Emily Schoerning and her nonprofit, American Resiliency, translate the latest and most urgent climate science into useful information for communities across the United States. Jason and Emily discuss the potential collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the merits of mitigation versus adaptation, and how to take meaningful action in your own community

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34:09

Choose Your AI Adventure: Immiseration or Extinction

Crazy Town ·

2026/01/28

Jason and Asher replace Rob with a much more humane and humble co-host, Elon Musk, to explore the feasibility of harnessing the entire sun to power AI superintelligence. We come away perplexed that not much of the excellent reporting on the environmental, energy, and financial risks of the AI boom address the googleplex-sized elephant in the room – that both AI success and failure lead to immiseration. Originally recorded on 12/3/25.Sources/Links/Notes:“Colossus 1” Search Engine podcast, November

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43:18

EVs on Speed: The Jevons Paradox Strikes Again

Crazy Town ·

2026/01/14

Mainstream economists and environmentalists share something in common. Both tend to tout efficiency -- think better light bulbs -- as the solution to climate change and all our other environmental problems. But the little-understood Jevons Paradox intervenes to overwhelm any progress that comes from improved efficiency. We skewer the efficiency gains of electric vehicles, lighting, and plenty of other sectors, and we cover ideas for avoiding the efficiency trap, including unveiling our new political

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