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
Mar 28, 2020 • 2min
Announcement: Keeping up with Coronavirus
Asher explains the changes to Crazy Town's schedule as we try to keep up with new developments during the coronavirus pandemic.Support the show
Mar 26, 2020 • 39min
The 10,000-Mile Cod, Insane Global Trade, and the Path to a Resilient Local Economy
What do Scottish cod, rubber duckies, rock phosphate, and shipping containers have in common? They all ride the oceans in really big boats as part of the insanity of today’s global trade. Trade seems like it should be a simple thing. I give you something, you give me something else in return, and we’re both better off. But our capitalism-on-steroids society has converted the simple into a Rube Goldberg machine of criss-crossing cargo ships, vulnerable supply chains, and just-in-time delivery, all so we can save some bucks while exploiting workers and habitats around the world. We’ve gone batshit crazy! Seriously, check out the history of trade in bat guano. With coronavirus prompting a slowdown in global trade, it’s all the more critical to find a different way forward. Thankfully, Asher, Rob, and Jason have a few ideas about how to have fun while building a resilient local economy. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter.Support the show
Mar 19, 2020 • 35min
The Long and Shart of Extreme Travel as Climate Chaos Reigns
Coronavirus has put the kibosh on frivolous travel for the moment, but we might want to do some reflecting before returning to business as usual. Prior to the outbreak, you were constantly told to put on your traveling shoes, cue up some good music for a journey (no, not the band Journey), and pack your bags. As long as costs stay down, we can fly to any destination for any purpose. Is your third cousin’s niece performing in a school play in Omaha? Wanna see the Great Barrier Reef before climate change bleaches it into oblivion? Do you feel like crashing the party at an away game where your favorite pro sports team is playing? No problem. Hop aboard a jumbo jet, and, like Dr. Seuss, people cheer, “Oh the places you’ll go!” That’s the story of extreme travel in Crazy Town. But maybe this is the perfect time to start a new conversation about travel and begin aligning our actions with our values. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website and be sure to sign up for our newsletter.Support the show
Mar 12, 2020 • 38min
The Adventures of Bill and Lou: the Obscene Politics of Climate Change and Overshoot
It’s easy to picture a group of social justice and environmental activists gathering in a circle. But these days, instead of holding hands and singing songs, they’re loading weapons and taking aim. Ahhhhh, the carnage! Why are progressives so eager to join a circular firing squad? Maybe this isn’t our best bet for solving climate change and the other wicked problems of the 21st century. Wouldn’t it be smarter to jettison the holier-than-thou act and find ways to collaborate? Asher, Rob, and Jason uncover lessons from the misadventures of an oxen team, a $10 million lawsuit, and an avalanche of emails about thorium, hemp, and overpopulation. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website and sign up for the newsletter.Support the show
May 30, 2019 • 44min
Band-Aid Town and the Psychology of Climate Change
Pop quiz! A friend of yours has just had an unfortunate chainsaw accident and cut a femoral artery: do you (a) make a tourniquet with your t-shirt, or (b) stick a Band-Aid on the wound? If you picked (b), congratulations! You've followed the instruction manual for humanity’s pathetic response to climate change. In this final episode of season 1, Asher, Rob, and Jason consider the psychology behind both inaction and effective action in these times of crisis. And for the very practical-minded, they also cover when to prescribe tobacco poultices and whiskey shots -- good fun for the whole family. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.Support the show
May 23, 2019 • 47min
Helicopters and Kick the Can: Money in the Real World of Energy and the Environment
Have you ever wondered how dolphins feel about quantitative easing? OK, probably not, but it is important to consider the effects that money and monetary policy have on the real world of energy, society, and the environment. Nate Hagens joins Asher, Rob, and Jason to discuss said dolphins, a never-ending Grateful Dead concert, and the prospects of two mature solar panels giving birth to a little bitty baby solar panel. Oh, and Nate also offers coherent comments on how money works, how our economic system is likely to perform in the coming years, and how individuals can respond appropriately to humanity’s overshoot predicament (spoiler alert: it doesn’t involve stockpiling guns, gold, and beans). For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.Support the show
May 16, 2019 • 38min
My Dinner Is Stuck in Traffic: Fossil Fuels and the Food Transition
You know what drives Jason really crazy about auto traffic? No, it’s not the 42 hours per year that the average commuter wastes stuck in it or even the global warming pollution spewed, it’s the 3 BILLION (with a B people!) gallons of fuel that are wasted instead of helping with the transition of our food system. In this episode, Rob, Asher, and Jason talk about why fossil fuels are so embedded in our food system and how changes in the way we grow food might change where all of us live. This episode is designed especially for people who like to eat food and hope to continue doing so. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.Support the show
May 9, 2019 • 50min
Tackling Inequality in the Economy, One Pair of Lederhosen at a Time
Chuck Collins joins Asher, Rob, and Jason in Crazy Town to describe his startling journey from undercover trust fund kid to tireless campaigner for economic equality. Together they examine why Richie Rich, Donald Trump, Scrooge McDuck, and Jeff Bezos keep getting richer (hint: it might have something to do with the rigged economic system). And they discuss what it means to address inequality on a finite planet. Is FDR’s New Deal still the best playbook? For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.Support the show
May 2, 2019 • 38min
They'll Think of Somethingisms: Is Technology Really the Answer to Overshoot?
The threats of overshoot and climate chaos loom larger by the day, but it’s all going to work out just fine. At least that’s what you hear from starry-eyed techno-optimists, hemp enthusiasts, and the output of ultra-hypothetical computer models. The silver bullet could come from outer space (e.g., mining asteroids or colonizing other worlds), it could come from the sky (turning air into carbon-sequestering rocks), or it could come from beneath our feet (building infrastructure out of hemp). Maybe we should stop grasping at these (carbon nanotube) straws, and look for alternatives to the politically expedient worship of technology? Warning: we employ some math to get at the answer. Get out your abacus. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.Support the show
Apr 25, 2019 • 48min
Mosquito-Flavored Popcorn: When Climate Scientists and Economists Go off the Rails
Did you know that we can lose half our food supply and it won’t matter? That’s because agriculture is only 3% of GDP, so there’s no need to worry about the effects of climate change on farming. Or so says the latest genius to win the Nobel Prize in economics. This “logic” is pretty darn disturbing on its own, but what happens when such muddled thinking comes to infest climate models? Besides causing Jason, Asher, and Rob to lose their minds (and their cool), it can lead to unrealistic optimism surrounding the Green New Deal and other worthwhile policies for dealing with climate change. Well, maybe we can use cryptocurrencies to purchase information about food for our virtual bellies when we run into problems on the farm. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.Support the show
