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 people would rather eat nachos on the deck of the “SS Denial” than face reality, you’ll find community and plenty of laughs in Crazy Town.Brought to you by https://www.resilience.org/ and the unconventional minds at Post Carbon Institute, a nonprofit think tank that builds awareness of the polycrisis and prescribes community resilience-building as the most appropriate response.Your hosts:Asher Miller - Nonprofit executive director by day, apocalypse comedian by night. Feels most at home exploring insanity-inducing topics while trying not to spill coffee on his keyboard as he convulses over the latest ecomodernist fantasy. In danger of losing his mind every time he encounters someone using a gas-powered blower to move leaves from one spot to another.Rob Dietz - Jack-of-all-trades environmental scientist, conservation biologist, and ecological economist with a penchant for relating planetary overshoot to the catalog of movie scenes that play on a continuous loop in his colonized brain. Known for inserting random ecological facts into casual conversation, often in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice. His friends call him “pessimistically hilarious.”Jason Bradford - Activist farmer and former encyclopedia salesman with a PhD in plant ecology who gets genuinely excited discussing soil microbes and societal collapse in the same breath. Morally opposed to doomsday prepping, but predisposed toward sharing everything he keeps in his bunker, er root cellar, including potatoes, wine, and a 47-month supply of scientific esoterica and embarrassing anecdotes.These guys are the Three Stooges of sustainability podcasting, although they tend toward scientific analysis, righteous outrage, and self-deprecation rather than beating each other up with hand tools. How can they have this much fun while contemplating collapse and navigating the Great Unraveling?Heartfelt thanks to the team at Post Carbon Institute, our volunteers, and all our fellow Crazy Townies out there who help bring this podcast to life.
Episodes
Mentioned books
May 7, 2020 • 46min
Koala Butts Ablaze: Growth, Conservation, and Collapse in the Adaptive Cycle
In the disorienting days of corona quarantine, wouldn't it be dope to have a model that can help you make sense of the world? Enter the adaptive cycle from the field of systems ecology -- arguably the most important framework you never heard of. Join Asher, Rob, and Jason as they give a guided tour of the growth, conservation, collapse, and reorganization phases of the cycle, and hash out how it can be applied to the modern world. By the end of the tour, besides having a useful lens for interpreting humanity's predicament, you'll be quite confident in assessing which phase is represented by a koala with a flaming fanny. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter.Support the show
May 4, 2020 • 5min
Announcement: Luciferian Mailbag Call
We want to hear your Crazy Town stories and questions. Please send email to crazytown@postcarbon.org, and if your message strikes the right chord (kinda like the voicemail we dissect in this announcement), we'll discuss it in our upcoming mailbag episode.Support the show
Apr 30, 2020 • 38min
Banana Town: Where Michael Moore Stokes Controversy over Renewable Energy
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 and consumption. In ring #3 are the oil-soaked, right-wing libertarians who think this film will help them keep earning and burning their way to the bank at the end of Armageddon Road. Asher, Rob, and Jason grapple with the cacophony, hash out the good and bad of the film and the response to it, and argue for an honest, messy-middle approach to the transition away from fossil fuels. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter.Support the show
Apr 23, 2020 • 40min
Mayor McCheese & Modern Medicine: Squandering Energy and Rethinking Technology
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 go?" And they ponder appropriate technology and whether the digging stick is primed for a comeback. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter.Support the show
Apr 20, 2020 • 27min
An Ecofascist and a Social Justice Warrior Walk into a Bar: Extremist Politics and Censorship
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 environmental movement's closet. Speaking of skeletons, wait until you hear our "theories" about Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter.Support the show
Apr 16, 2020 • 55min
Foreclosing on the Frackers: Coronavirus and the Future of Energy
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 new pandemic reality, before exploring some absurdities of social distancing in Quarantine Corner. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter.Support the show
Apr 9, 2020 • 33min
Delusion to the Left, Denial to the Right, and the Environmental Reality Caught in the Middle
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 "solution" to the toilet paper hoarding madness of 2020. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter.Support the show
Apr 6, 2020 • 36min
I Can't Drive 35: the Politics of Rationing and its Potential to Shift the Economy
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 mentality, break out your coupon book, and engage your sense of fairness as Crazy Town explores the rationale behind rationing. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website and be sure to sign up for our newsletter.Support the show
Apr 2, 2020 • 42min
Coronavirus and the Three Bears: the Right-Sized Crisis for a Transition to Sustainability?
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 thinking and acting differently. And when it comes to crisis, size matters: too big (think asteroids and nuclear missiles) and all of civilization is at risk, too small and nothing happens. Is there such a thing as a "just right" Goldilocks crisis? Grab a bowl and spoon and pull up a chair (not too hard and not too soft) as we talk porridge and pandemic. Bonus: join Asher, Rob, and Jason in Quarantine Corner, where you’ll appreciate the lighter side of social distancing. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter.Support the show
Mar 30, 2020 • 1h 12min
Our Naked Emperors Catch Coronavirus: How to Think about Collapse with Nafeez Ahmed
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 explore how we can make progress toward re-envisioning a prosocial, equitable, and environmentally sound society. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter.Support the show
