The guest on this episode of Doomer Optimism is world traveler and do-gooder Simon Mostafa, who joined hosts Josh Kearns (@HillbillyNarnia) and Jason Snyder (@cognazor) from Spain, where he is currently working on various homesteading projects .Topics include: water and sanitation projects in the developing world, Mostafa's work in Chiapas and Spain, and facing down the existential crises of our time.
About Simon Mostafa
After graduating from Colorado University with a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering, Mostafa moved to Chiapas to work as the Director of Research for Cántaro Azul, focusing on water sanitation research. He now lives in Spain doing community homesteading work.
About Dr. Josh Kearns
Josh is a born-n-bred Appalachian and a native of West-By-God-Virginia and damn proud of it. He studied chemistry and environmental engineering at Clemson (BS), biogeochemistry at Berkeley (MS), and environmental engineering at CU-Boulder (PhD). He's spent years bumming around rural and remote communities in Thailand, Burma/Myanmar, India, Nepal, Ladakh, Sri Lanka, and Mexico, and generally tried to make himself useful while doing so. He's the Director of Science for Aqueous Solutions, and the Chief Technical Advisor for Caminos de Agua, grassroots water and health development organizations in Thailand and Mexico, respectively. He taught environmental engineering courses at NC State University for a couple of years before returning to his roots as a freelance renegade scientist and exponent of ecological transition engineering. He lives with his wife Rachael and all their critters on a small mountaintop homestead in southern Appalachia.
About Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.
