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Crazy Town

Crazy Town

De: Post Carbon Institute
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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.

© 2025 Post Carbon Institute Ciencia Ciencias Biológicas Ciencias Geológicas Historia Natural Naturaleza y Ecología
Episodios
  • Will Trump's Tariffs Fuel or Foil the Degrowth Movement?

    Will Trump's Tariffs Fuel or Foil the Degrowth Movement?
    Jul 2 2025

    As Trump’s tariffs kick in, the Republican party is suddenly spouting anti-consumerist rhetoric that would make the Lorax smile. Should we cheer on this accidental experiment in economic shrinkage, or will this ham-fisted set of trade policies cause a backlash against the proponents of degrowth? As political confusion reigns, we offer eco-localism as the no-regrets way to build community resilience in the face of unprecedented ineptitude that probably won’t go away anytime soon. Originally recorded on 6/16/25.

    Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

    Sources/Links/Notes:

    • Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Abundance, Avid Reader Press, March 2025.
    • UN Alliance For Sustainable Fashion addresses the damage of ‘fast fashion’
    • Kelsey Piper, "Trump’s bizarre new push to make us poorer," Vox, February 7, 2025.
    • Kenneth Pucker, "Lessons From Trump’s Degrowth Experiment," Business of Fashion, May 9, 2025.
    • Kenneth Bradsher, "China’s Chokehold on This Obscure Mineral Threatens the West’s Militaries," New York Times, June 9, 2025.
    • Adam Tooze, "Trump's futurism: Elon's rockets and fewer dolls for "baby girl," Chartbook, May 6, 2025.
    • "The End of Fast Fashion?," The Daily, May 15, 2025.
    • Kurt Cobb, "Trade war vise grip: China is squeezing rare earth supply and it’s hurting," Resilience, June 8, 2025.
    • "Derek Thompson: Trump's War on Dolls," The Bulwark, May 2, 2025.
    • Richard Heinberg, "How Eco-Localism Differs from Tariff Terrorism," Resilience, April 17, 2025.

    Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:

    • Episode 86, "Escaping Growthism"
    • Episode 94, “Breaking News: Crazy Town joins the newly formed Department of Entropy”

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    48 m
  • Blinded by the Light - Facing Reality with Renewable Energy

    Blinded by the Light - Facing Reality with Renewable Energy
    Jun 18 2025

    Solar panels and other modern energy technologies can be really useful, but the belief that we can technologize our way to a bigger and better society powered by clean energy is tragically flawed. Asher, Rob, and Jason dig into the up-and-down story of the Ivanpah concentrated solar power plant, review the Harry Potteresque thinking behind complex, centralized power plants, and expose the truth of the energy transition. After they finish making fun of concentrated solar/golf course/outlet mall complexes in the desert, they discuss how to make real progress on energy and sustainability. Originally recorded on 6/5/25.

    Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

    Sources/Links/Notes:

    • Michael R. Blood, “11 years after a celebrated opening, massive solar plant faces a bleak future in the Mojave Desert,” AP News, January 30, 2025.
    • Laura Paddison, "This alien-like field of mirrors in the desert was once the future of solar energy. It’s closing after just 11 years," CNN, February 13, 2025.
    • Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy, January 1, 2024.
    • Rachel Donald, “The ‘Energy Transition’ is a Pipe Dream | Jean-Baptiste Fressoz,” Planet: Critical podcast, March 19, 2025.
    • Drax Power Station
    • U.S. Department of Energy, Facts about Ivanpah
    • Energy Monitor report on the opening of Ivanpah
    • Louis Sahagun, "This Mojave Desert solar plant kills 6,000 birds a year. Here’s why that won’t change any time soon," Los Angeles Times, September 2, 2016.
    • Annual carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions worldwide from 1940 to 2024

    Resources for conservation and local solar power:

    • Solar United Neighbors
    • 2,000-Watt Society
    • Peter Kalmus, Being the Change, New Society Publishers, July 10, 2017.
    • Kris De Decker, "How to Build a Low-Tech Solar Panel," Resilience, October 21, 2021.
    • Coop Power
    • Seeds for the Sol
    • The Institute for Local Self-Resilience has a community solar program.

    Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:

    • Episode 45 on feedback loops
    • Episode 60 on air conditioning

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    57 m
  • Who Can Fix the Housing Crisis - NYT Pundits, German Shepherds, or Bilbo Baggins?

    Who Can Fix the Housing Crisis - NYT Pundits, German Shepherds, or Bilbo Baggins?
    Jun 4 2025

    Jason, Rob, and Asher are taking out a huge, unaffordable mortgage on the housing crisis. What’s behind the shortage in housing? Why is it that no one, except canine Tik Tok influencers with billion-dollar bank accounts, can afford to own a home? While mainstream pundits press for an energy-blind buildout of desert sprawl and gleaming towers of glass and steel, we propose a surprising change of course inspired by little people with hairy feet. Originally recorded on 5/21/25.

    Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

    Sources/Links/Notes:

    • The story of Gunther, the world's most moneyed canine.
    • You can't make this stuff up: Gunther offers to buy Nicholas Cage's island.
    • David Wessel, "Where do the estimates of a 'housing shortage' come from?," Brookings Institute, October 21, 2024.
    • Alex Fitzpatrick and Alice Feng, "Americans' average daily travel distance, mapped," Axios, March 24, 2024.
    • Jon Gertner, "America Is on Fire, Says One Climate Writer. Should You Flee?," New York Times, March 22, 2024.
    • U.S. News and World Report, "Fastest-Growing Places in the U.S. in 2025-2026."

    Good Ideas for Addressing the Housing Crisis:

    • Jason Bradford, "Growing the Shire, Not the 'Burb: Facing the Housing Crisis with Ecological Sanity," Resilience, May 27, 2025.
    • Global Ecovillage Network
    • Nate Hagens, "Alexis Zeigler — Living Without Fossil Fuels: How Living Energy Farm Created a Comfortable Off-Grid Lifestyle," The Great Simplification, April 9, 2025.

    Energy-Blind Non-Solutions for the Housing Crisis:

    • Conor Dougherty, "Why America Should Sprawl," New York Times, April 10, 2025.
    • Binyamin Applebaum, "Build Homes on Federal Land," New York Times, April 15, 2025.
    • Ezra Klein, "Abundance and the Left," The Ezra Klein Show, April 29, 2025.
    • Samuel Moyn, "Can Democrats Learn to Dream Big Again?," New York Times, March 18, 2025.
    • Tyler Cowen, "Ezra Klein on the Abundance Agenda (Ep. 236)" Conversations with Tyler, March 7, 2025.

    Related Episode(s) of Crazy Town:

    • Episode 37. Discounting the Future and Climate Chaos, or… the Story of the Dueling Economists

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    52 m
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