Crazy Town
127 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 days ago -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.
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Episodes
Koala Butts Ablaze: Growth, Conservation, and Collapse in the Adaptive Cycle
May 07, 2020 04:00 - 45 minutes - 31.6 MBIn 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 inte...
Announcement: Luciferian Mailbag Call
May 04, 2020 04:00 - 5 minutes - 3.53 MBWe want to hear your Crazy Town stories and questions. Please send email to [email protected], 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.
Banana Town: Where Michael Moore Stokes Controversy over Renewable Energy
April 30, 2020 04:00 - 38 minutes - 26.2 MBPaying 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 pop...
Mayor McCheese & Modern Medicine: Squandering Energy and Rethinking Technology
April 23, 2020 04:00 - 40 minutes - 27.7 MBSome 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 appropri...
An Ecofascist and a Social Justice Warrior Walk into a Bar: Extremist Politics and Censorship
April 20, 2020 04:00 - 27 minutes - 18.9 MBWe'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 th...
Foreclosing on the Frackers: Coronavirus and the Future of Energy
April 16, 2020 04:00 - 54 minutes - 37.6 MBIn 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...
Delusion to the Left, Denial to the Right, and the Environmental Reality Caught in the Middle
April 09, 2020 04:00 - 33 minutes - 22.7 MBHow 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...
I Can't Drive 35: the Politics of Rationing and its Potential to Shift the Economy
April 06, 2020 04:00 - 35 minutes - 24.7 MBIf 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 mental...
Coronavirus and the Three Bears: the Right-Sized Crisis for a Transition to Sustainability?
April 02, 2020 04:00 - 42 minutes - 29.1 MBFirst 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 ...
Our Naked Emperors Catch Coronavirus: How to Think about Collapse with Nafeez Ahmed
March 30, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 49.5 MBAsher 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, t...
Announcement: Keeping up with Coronavirus
March 28, 2020 01:00 - 1 minute - 1.1 MBAsher explains the changes to Crazy Town's schedule as we try to keep up with new developments during the coronavirus pandemic. Support the Show.
The 10,000-Mile Cod, Insane Global Trade, and the Path to a Resilient Local Economy
March 26, 2020 04:00 - 39 minutes - 26.9 MBWhat 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...
The Long and Shart of Extreme Travel as Climate Chaos Reigns
March 19, 2020 04:00 - 34 minutes - 23.9 MBCoronavirus 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 cli...
The Adventures of Bill and Lou: the Obscene Politics of Climate Change and Overshoot
March 12, 2020 04:00 - 37 minutes - 25.8 MBIt’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 ...
Band-Aid Town and the Psychology of Climate Change
May 30, 2019 04:00 - 44 minutes - 20.2 MBPop 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,...
Helicopters and Kick the Can: Money in the Real World of Energy and the Environment
May 23, 2019 04:00 - 46 minutes - 21.5 MBHave 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 ec...
My Dinner Is Stuck in Traffic: Fossil Fuels and the Food Transition
May 16, 2019 04:00 - 37 minutes - 17.4 MBYou 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 ...
Tackling Inequality in the Economy, One Pair of Lederhosen at a Time
May 09, 2019 04:00 - 49 minutes - 22.7 MBChuck 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...
They'll Think of Somethingisms: Is Technology Really the Answer to Overshoot?
May 02, 2019 04:00 - 37 minutes - 17.4 MBThe 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). ...
Mosquito-Flavored Popcorn: When Climate Scientists and Economists Go off the Rails
April 25, 2019 04:00 - 47 minutes - 21.9 MBDid 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 optimi...
Deer Sinew and Beetle Biscuits: Raising Kids in the Age of Climate Chaos
April 18, 2019 04:00 - 46 minutes - 21.1 MBWhat do we want our children to do in the waning days of the fossil fuel frenzy and the early days of climate chaos? Being a good parent is hard enough under the best of circumstances, but it’s really difficult to know how much we should expose our kids to the realities of environmental meltdown and social injustice. In this episode Asher, Rob, and Jason explore what we could be teaching kids these days and debate which is the more valuable skill: being comfortable eating beetles or understa...
Zombies, Magic Rocks, Collapse, and Other Fun Sustainability Stories
April 11, 2019 04:00 - 38 minutes - 17.5 MBApocalypse is upon us, at least in movies, television shows, books, and even podcasts. Teen characters in youth literature are more likely to solve their differences by bow-hunting one another rather than hugging it out in the school hallways. In this episode, Asher, Rob, and Jason search for reasons why the movie theater is so obsessed with Armageddon and the political theater offers empty promises of infinite progress, when the reality is likely to be somewhere in the messy middle. For lis...
Solar Freakin' Roadways: How Technological Optimism Undermines Sustainability
April 04, 2019 04:00 - 49 minutes - 22.8 MBWe’re GOING to make the transition to renewable sources of energy. There is no scenario outside the dark mind of Dick Cheney where we continue to use depleting and polluting fossil fuels over the long run to power society. So how exactly are we going to make the transition? In this episode, Jason, Rob, and Asher talk about some of the magical “solutions” that are being peddled out on the streets of Crazy Town (solar roadways, anyone?!?) and why we’re so quick to jump at technological fixes t...
My Car Is Bigger than Yours: Consumerist Dreams and Environmental Nightmares
March 28, 2019 04:00 - 44 minutes - 20.5 MBIf you jam on the brakes for just a minute and take a look at cars and car culture, you just might find something stinky (maybe even as stinky as the black plume of diesel exhaust emanating from that souped-up pickup truck you’re stuck behind). Yes, there are some upsides to cars and driving, but those are overshadowed by the unbelievable downsides. Do you know how many deaths -- of people and animals -- can be attributed to the automobile? How about cars’ contribution to total greenhouse ga...
1.21 Jigawatts: Energy Literacy and the Real Scoop on Fossil Fuels
March 21, 2019 04:00 - 51 minutes - 23.8 MBWhat would we do without energy? The short answer is, “Nothing, absolutely nothing.” And sadly, most people know next to nothing about energy and its fundamental role in society and life itself. If you’ve ever tried to push a car a small distance down a street, then maybe you have some understanding. But do you know how many hours of human labor are contained in a barrel of oil? Or how much it would cost for people to do the work of a fossil-fueled machine? Or how hard a world champion cycli...
Punching Ronnie in the Mouth: Limits to Growth and Economic Lies
March 14, 2019 04:00 - 40 minutes - 18.4 MBIn his 2nd inaugural address, Ronald Reagan said, "There are no limits to growth and human progress when men and women are free to follow their dreams." First impression: that's a nice-sounding sentiment -- way to stay positive, Ronnie! Second impression: what a load of crap (and a horrible foundation for economic policy in the age of overshoot)! This episode focuses on the limits to growth, including the growth imperatives built into our economic institutions, and explores how the economy c...
Orangutans and Santa Suits: Who's Crazy When It Comes to Climate Change?
March 14, 2019 03:00 - 40 minutes - 18.4 MBCan you imagine putting on a Santa Claus suit, not to pull a fast one on the kids and deliver Christmas presents, but to protest Big Oil and climate change in front of your local gas station? That may sound insane, but given what's at stake, it might be the sanest thing you could do on Christmas Eve (plus it's kinda funny). In this first episode, Asher, Rob, and Jason explore how tough it can be to keep from going crazy as our society rushes headlong toward the cliff edge of environmental an...