KunstlerCast - Conversations: Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century

John Droz, Jr. received undergraduate degrees in Physics and Mathematics from Boston College, and a graduate degree in Physics from Syracuse University. He subsequently worked for GE (Aerospace Electronics), Mohawk Data Sciences, and Monolithic Memories (Cupertino, CA). After retiring at 34, he phased into pursuing a variety of community interests. This led to a 40 year commitment as an environmental advocate. He lives in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. John has has written and published over a hundred articles on energy policy matters, been a guest speaker on dozens of radio and TV shows, nationwide, and has spoken to numerous organizations on energy and environmental issues. In late 2020 John was asked if he would put together a team of independent experts to analyze election data. He agreed to do that and as of this writing they have generated ten major reports. Find them at Election-Integrity.info. The KunstlerCast theme music is the beautiful Two Rivers Waltz written and performed by Larry Unger.

 Chris Martenson, PhD (Duke), MBA (Cornell) is an economic researcher and futurist specializing in energy and resource depletion, and founder of PeakProsperity.com.  As one of the early econobloggers who forecasted the housing market collapse and stock market correction years in advance, Chris rose to prominence with the launch of his seminal video seminar: The Crash Course which has also been published in book form (Wiley, March 2011).  The Crash Course is a popular and extremely well-regarded distillation of the interconnected forces in the Economy, Energy and the Environment (the “Three Es” as Chris calls them) that are shaping the future — one that will be defined by increasing challenges to growth as we have known it. Chris and Evie now live on a 180-acre rural property in western MA and love being close to nature’s bounty and beauty. The KunstlerCast theme music is the beautiful Two Rivers Waltz written and performed by Larry Unger.

Dr Tim Morgan is a leading exponent of the view that the economy is an energy system, not a financial one. This was set out in the report Perfect Storm – when Tim was global head of research at leading international finance firm Tullett Prebon – and in the book Life After Growth.  Since that book was published in 2013, his focus has been on modelling the economy as an energy system. His model – the Surplus Energy Economics Data System (SEEDS) – produces results that differ radically from models which accept the premise that energy and resources play no more than supporting roles in an economy shaped and driven by money. His research can be found at https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/ The KunstlerCast theme music is the beautiful Two Rivers Waltz written and performed by Larry Unger.

The Anonymous high school physics teacher has been corresponding with me for a while and I asked him to come on the podcast. He teaches in New England, and that is all I can reveal of his identity. Of course, we will chat about the current scene in secondary education. The KunstlerCast theme music is the beautiful Two Rivers Waltz written and performed by Larry Unger.

Hobbs Magaret is a regenerative cattle rancher in Central Oregon. Raised on the ranches of the Texas Panhandle and further educated at The University of Oregon, he has experienced two extremes of the contemporary American Experiment. Hobbs, his wife, and his daughter live in Sisters, Oregon, where they use regenerative and fossil fuel averse techniques to rehabilitate degraded ag land and sell beef directly to regional consumers. Visit his website at SistersCattleco.com and checkout his interesting videos at TikTok. The KunstlerCast theme music is the beautiful Two Rivers Waltz written and performed by Larry Unger.

Derrick Jensen is an author, teacher, activist, and small farmer. He is the author of more than twenty-five books, including A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, and Endgame. He was named “the Poet Philosopher of the Ecological Movement” by Democracy Now! and one of Utne Reader's “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World.” He is the co-author of the new book Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It.  He lives in  Northern California The KunstlerCast theme music is the beautiful Two Rivers Waltz written and performed by Larry Unger.

John Michael Greer, an old friend of the podcast, blogs at Ecosophia --  subtitle, Toward an Ecological Spirituality. JMG has been an astute observer of the Western world’s arduous economic and cultural descent, and is the author of many books, both novels and non-fiction, including Green Wizardry, After Oil, The Wealth of Nature, and Not the Future We Ordered. Star’s Reach, is a novel set 400 years ahead in America’s neo-medieval future. We chat about his latest book, coming out this spring, The King in Orange, a meditation on the relationship between archetype psychology and the occult as acted out in politics and culture. The KunstlerCast theme music is the beautiful Two Rivers Waltz written and performed by Larry Unger.

Adam Ellwanger is a professor of English at the University of Houston - Downtown, where he teaches rhetoric and writing. In addition to those topics, his varied research interests include popular culture, political philosophy, media studies, and the American Mess writ large. Check out his dangerous new book on the modern politics of identity, entitled Metanoia: Rhetoric, Authenticity, and the Transformation of the Self.  You will also like his essay on the Human Events website: Toward a Woke Metaphysics. Recently, he authored an open letter signed by over 180 professors that outlines forms of non-compliance that signatories will undertake in an effort to resist the current ideological trends on campus. Ellwanger also offers regular commentary at sites like Human Events, New Discourses, American Greatness, Quillette, and more. In his free time, he writes, plays guitar, drinks beer and ruby port, and listens to music. Follow him @DoctorEllwanger on Twitter. The KunstlerCast theme music is the beautiful Two Rivers Waltz written and performed by Larry Unger.

#338 —Andres Duany is a key founder of the New Urbanist movement. His Miami-based firm, DPZ, with wife and partner Lizz Plater-Zyberk, designed the iconic new town, Seaside, Florida, and scores of other excellent projects in the USA and around the world. Andres continues to lead the way in urban design and in these turbulent times, I think you’ll appreciate communing with his fierce and humorous intelligence. The KunstlerCast theme music is the beautiful Two Rivers Waltz written and performed by Larry Unger.

David Collum is the Betty R. Miller Professor of Chemistry at Cornell University. He is the intellectual utility infielder of internet commentary, covering all the bases: culture, politics, finance, and technology, with often surprising views on the the predicaments of our time. Here we attempt to make sense of the fast-moving corona virus story and the increasingly weird and troubling second-order events spinning off of it into the global economy and fractious American politics du jour.