Crazy Town
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.Bro...
Birdbrained: When Nature and Technology Collide
What happens when technology and competition start to invade our experiences in nature? For example, what if you’re so focused on documenting a bird sighting in your iPhone app that you fail to appreciate the majestic songs of the bushtit or dickcissel on the branch in front of you? In this episode, Jason, Rob, and Asher explore the world of competitive birding, the relationship between those who love nature and the technology they use to connect to it, and how even the most gentle of shared passions can get corrupted by status-fueled competition. Bear with us through the ma...
Being Team Human in Crazy Town
Have you ever had that feeling in your gut, when you suddenly realize that the person you’re talking with might have a screw or two loose? What about when you’re the one others are trying to slowly back away from at the punch bowl? The question of who’s the real nut often arises for us collapse-aware folks living here in Crazy Town. Since Mr. Peanut is no longer returning their phone calls, Rob, Jason, and Asher invite Douglas Rushkoff, media theorist, professor, and host of the Team Human Podcast to answer the question. In this far rangin...
You Ain’t Gonna Live Forever: The Dos and Don’ts of Legacy Building
Immortality projects represent an often irrational, and sometimes even unconscious, way to tamp down anxiety about death. There are some shocking examples of people, especially those with lots and lots of money, who try to leave some sort of mark in a futile attempt to keep from facing death. In this episode, we run a special fantasy-football style draft to take a look at immortality projects, some horrendous, but some with positive effects. Originally recorded on February 6, 2026.
Sources/Links/Notes:
Adam McCay, The Big Short, 2015 filmHenry VIIIGabriella Angeleti, “Two men sentenced to prison time for vandalising Ne...Crazy Town Classics - Terror Management Theory
What can we learn about death from the X-Men, small screaming rodents, and unwitting college students in psychology experiments? It turns out that the fear of death (or death anxiety) affects human behavior in all sorts of surprising and deeply troubling ways. Especially disconcerting is the way such fear entices people to cling to cultural beliefs so tightly that they will attack anything or anyone they perceive as a threat to their beliefs. And extra-super-duper disconcerting is how unaware most of us are that we are susceptible to such bad behavior when we’re reminded that one day we’ll d...
Getting Real about Resiliency with Emily Schoerning
What if there were a news outlet that actually covered the most important environmental stories of our time? Dr. Emily Schoerning and her nonprofit, American Resiliency, translate the latest and most urgent climate science into useful information for communities across the United States. Jason and Emily discuss the potential collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the merits of mitigation versus adaptation, and how to take meaningful action in your own community. Originally recorded on 12/22/25.
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American ResiliencyMark Rober YouTube ChannelSixth National Climate Assessment, International Panel on Climate ChangeChoose Your AI Adventure: Immiseration or Extinction
Jason and Asher replace Rob with a much more humane and humble co-host, Elon Musk, to explore the feasibility of harnessing the entire sun to power AI superintelligence. We come away perplexed that not much of the excellent reporting on the environmental, energy, and financial risks of the AI boom address the googleplex-sized elephant in the room – that both AI success and failure lead to immiseration. Originally recorded on 12/3/25.
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“Colossus 1” Search Engine podcast, November 21, 2025“Colossus 2” Search Engine podcast, November 21, 2025Episode 77, "The Elon Musk Episode about Elon Musk Brought to You by Elon Musk", Crazy Town...EVs on Speed: The Jevons Paradox Strikes Again
Mainstream economists and environmentalists share something in common. Both tend to tout efficiency -- think better light bulbs -- as the solution to climate change and all our other environmental problems. But the little-understood Jevons Paradox intervenes to overwhelm any progress that comes from improved efficiency. We skewer the efficiency gains of electric vehicles, lighting, and plenty of other sectors, and we cover ideas for avoiding the efficiency trap, including unveiling our new political platform, which is sure to take the country by storm.
Sources/Links/Notes:
Jason Barlow, "EVs Have Gotten Too Powerful," Wired, September 19, 2025...Sane Town: A Realistic Vision of Life 100 Years from Now
Picture the future 100 years from now. What do you imagine? Flying cars? Space colonies? AI talking toasters?
But if we can’t sustain an endlessly growing economy - even with a transition to green energy - what does a realistic and positive future look like?
Alex Leff of the Human Nature Odyssey podcast joins Jason, Rob, and Asher to imagine life in the 22nd century: walking from our family farms into communal villages, living off the land in a low-energy lifestyle, taming our pet donkeys, and resisting our local warlords.
It’s not the f...
Toasting Bread Is WAY Harder Than You Think: The Challenges of a Renewable Energy Future
What does a livable future look like 100 years from now? If we unlocked unlimited green energy, what would we actually do with it? And are our dreams of a renewable-energy utopia sometimes just as delusional as the old fossil-fueled, drill-baby-drill mentality?
Alex Leff of the Human Nature Odyssey podcast hosts this special Crazy Town highlights compilation. Alex revisits some of the most thought-provoking moments from Crazy Town, weaving in new commentary and context. Together, we explore energy literacy, the promises and pitfalls of a renewable-energy transition, and why toasting a simple slice of bread is much harder...
Worried about the Future? Join the Club
There’s the book club, the Rotary Club, the Mickey Mouse Club, and the club sandwich. Whatever your preference, you might want to think about joining a club. Social clubs, fraternal orders, and the like have had a storied and critical role in public life. That is, until government programs and technology gave us an out from having to deal with each other. But with modernity failing, will clubs and community organizations make a huge comeback? In this episode we explore club life – past, present, and future, if there is one. Originally recorded on 11/6/25.
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Ro...Searching for the Golden Toad with Kyle and Trevor Ritland
Frog and Toad Are Friends, at least according to a venerable children’s book. And so are Jason (Crazy Town’s resident biology nerd) and conservationist brothers, Kyle and Trevor Ritland, authors of The Golden Toad: An Ecological Mystery and the Search for a Lost Species. The three eco-explorers connect over wondrous habitats and critters in Costa Rica's cloud forest and swap stories that cover Lazarus species, global pandemics, self-taught naturalists, birding, and even pregnancy tests. Spliced into the nostalgia and stories are reflections on how to cope in a world where biodiversity is declining and how to regain the...
Unsung Heroes: Sustainability Gurus Who Influenced the Crazy Town Worldview
Some key understandings in Crazy Town: the Earth is finite; the economy cannot grow forever; people can harm ecosystems and cause global warming; physics, chemistry, and biology are real; inequality hurts everyone; healthy humans need community, and it’s more fun to laugh than to cry. But where did principles like these originate? In this episode, Jason, Asher, and Rob use the format of a fantasy football draft to pick the pundits who most influenced their thinking on sustainability, resilience, community, science, economics, and politics. Like starry-eyed fanboys (but hopefully a bit more articulate) they gush over their heroes an...
Burned by Billionaires, with Chuck Collins
Billionaires. They should be objects of scorn rather than envy. While they ride around in their super-yachts and private jets, producing the climate-damaging pollution of entire nations, they’re doing things to extract even more wealth, harm your health, diminish democracy, and rig the whole system in their favor. How did this happen? Why do we tolerate it? How can we stop the billionaires? And can we get a hold of our own super-yacht for Crazy Town pleasure cruises? Chuck Collins returns to Crazy Town to offer insights from his new book, Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Po...
Crazy Town Classics - Maximum Power and Scarcity, or... the Story of the Birdbrained Backhoe on the Beach
The “maximum power principle” may sound like the doctrine of an evil supervillain, but it actually applies to all living creatures. The principle states that biological systems organize to increase power whenever constraints allow. Given the way humans adhere to this principle, especially by overexploiting fossil fuels, we often do behave like supervillains, wielding power in wildly irresponsible ways and triggering climate change, biodiversity loss, and other aspects of our sustainability predicament. Sometimes it seems like we’re using a backhoe to dig our own grave. Fortunately, once you understand efficiency and its different flavors, you can see opportunities to opt...
Et Tu, Bhutan? Cryptocurrency and Late-Stage Capitalism
Maximize profits, exploit nature, hoard money, and, like Buzz Lightyear, grow the economy to infinity and beyond! That’s the modern economic playbook. But for decades, one renegade country has taken a contrarian stance that actually cares about people’s wellbeing and environmental health: the Himalayan nation of Bhutan. When Bhutan embraced “Gross National Happiness” and a sane notion of progress, environmentalists and social reformers rejoiced. They spotlighted Bhutan as an example of how we can build a better economy. But now it seems that no one can escape the gravity field of techno-capitalism’s black hole of cryptocurrency and bullsh...
Artifacts of Collapse: Touring the Crazy Town Museum
In this episode we travel in time to the year 2125, to visit the Crazy Town museum, which showcases today’s world of wanton consumption and profligate waste. How will humans in 2125 – if there are any of us left – judge the things everyone sees as normal today? Jason, Rob, and Asher take turns serving as expert curators of this future museum, nominating items that best encapsulate how foolish and environmentally ruinous our priorities are. At the end we call on you, dear listener, to share what you would include in the museum.
Originally recorded on 7/11/25. Visit Crazy Town on the...
Crazy Town Classics - Net Energy and Sustainability, or… the Story of the Overstuffed Strongman
All of humanity’s feats, whether a record-setting deadlift by the world’s strongest man or the construction of a gleaming city by a technologically advanced economy, originate from a single hidden source: positive net energy. Having surplus energy in the form of thirteen pounds of food per day enables a very big man, Hafthor Bjornsson, to lift very big objects. Similarly, having surplus energy in the form of fossil fuel enables very big societies to build and trade very big piles of stuff. Maybe Hafthor has a rock-solid plan for keeping his dinner plate well stocked, but no soci...
Just One Word: Microplastics, with Matt Simon
Put on your best polyester pants, grab a bunch of gleaming mylar balloons, and crack open a case of bottled water. In today's episode, we're entering the plastic world of plastic pollution in all its glorious plasticity. We're on the hunt for microplastics – and we won’t have to go very far, as they're present everywhere – in the soil, in the water, in the air, and in our bodies. We'll be looking for systemic solutions and talking with Matt Simon, author of the book A Poison Like No Other.
Originally recorded on 7/10/25. Visit Crazy Town on the web.
Crazy Town Classics - Lord of the Swans: The Tragedy of the Enclosure of the Commons
The “tragedy of the commons” is an idea that has so thoroughly seeped into culture and law that it seems normal for people and corporations to own land, water, and even whole ecosystems. But there’s a BIG problem: the “tragedy” part of it has been debunked – it really should be the triumph of the commons. Learn the origin story of privatization and explore the true meaning of commons and how to manage them for sustainability and equity. Also check out our suggestions for championing the commons (beyond Robin Hood’s strategy of stabbing the aristocracy). Originally recorded on 2/10/22.
Sourc...
Will Trump's Tariffs Fuel or Foil the Degrowth Movement?
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...Blinded by the Light - Facing Reality with Renewable Energy
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.
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Who Can Fix the Housing Crisis - NYT Pundits, German Shepherds, or Bilbo Baggins?
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.
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The story of Gunther, the world's mo...Bunkers, Bazookas, and Bespoke Moats: How to Be Safe in an Unsafe World
The world has gone bunking mad. The bespoke security industry is burying bunkers stocked with arsenals of automatic rifles and surrounded by flaming moats. Is there a better way to prepare for the polycrisis, the zombie apocalypse, or whatever hard times are on the horizon? Jason, Rob, and Asher have some fun at the expense of the bunker builders before examining the positive aspects of peasanthood and stressing the need to build community.
Originally recorded on 5/5/25.
Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.
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Coralie Kraft, "The 'Panic Industry' Boom,"...It Was Never Your Democracy Anyway: Thomas Linzey on Rethinking the Constitution
Democracy and environmental protection have two things in common: (1) they’re both supposed to be enshrined in the laws of the United States and (2) they’re both under severe attack right now. Asher speaks with Thomas Linzey of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights to uncover how the source code of the U.S. Constitution and the body of environmental laws that follow it are actually designed to allow corporations to override the will of the people. After pinpointing the problem, Thomas explains what can be done, especially at the local level, to reach sustainable and just outcomes that...
Going #2: The Dueling Rules of Nature That Every Good Earthling Needs to Know
Happy Earth Day! There are two concepts that every person should understand to be a better Earthling: entropy and self-organization. It seems like a paradox, but systems on Earth are simultaneously breaking down into disorder and arranging themselves into complex superorganisms. Everything on Earth (well, really in the whole universe) is subject to the second law of thermodynamics, which means it all dies and decays. But with access to steady flows of energy, organisms, ecosystems, and human societies can hold back the death and decay for a spell. After dropping the kids off at the pool, Asher, Rob, and...
Even AI Chatbots Hate Us: The Rise of the New Luddites, with Brian Merchant
Who knew that the breakthrough moment of AI sentience would come from interacting with an annoying neo-Luddite?
After failing to raise a single dollar for PCI’s newest initiative — the $350 billion Transdisciplinary Institute for Phalse Prophet Studies and Education (TIPPSE) — Jason, Rob, and Asher devise the only profitable pitch for raising capital: using AI technology to cure the loneliness that technology itself causes. The only problem is that AI chatbots won’t talk to us, as evidenced by Asher’s experience of being blocked by an AI “friend.” So Asher turns to the flesh-and-blood author of Blood in the Machine...
A Temporary Techno Stunt: Tom Murphy on Falling out of Love with Modernity
Recovering technology booster Tom Murphy visits Crazy Town to discuss his journey from shooting lasers at the moon, to trying to "solve" the energy predicament, to falling out of love with modernity itself. Asher, Jason, Rob, and Tom discuss the roots and short-lived nature of modernity, which has not only shaped the world we inhabit but conquered our very imaginations. They reminisce about aspects of hi-tech society that have already fallen away in its hubristic march towards mastering (or should we say undermining?) nature. They close by contemplating what it means to detach from humanocentric delusions of grandeur and...
Eating the Future: The NY Times Goes Full Ecomodernist on Food and Farming
How will we feed people living in the megacities of the 21st century, especially while confronting climate chaos and the depletion of fossil fuels and fossil water? According to the mainstream media: ecomodernism! Massive deployment of technology on factory farms and an extreme ramp-up of industrialization will save the day – right? RIGHT?!? If you read the New York Times, you might think that supermarket shelves will forever overflow with 3D-printed fish sticks, mylar bags full of genetically modified cheesy poofs, and faux corn dogs that ooze out of laboratory vats. Jason, Rob, and Asher question the wisdom of doubling do...
Bargaining With Collapse: A Superabundance of Lab Grown Meat and Dryer Balls
Do you contemplate topics like climate change, biodiversity loss, and the risk of civilizational collapse? If so, then you probably understand something about bargaining – a psychological defense mechanism that’s one of the five stages of grief. With just a wee bit of embarrassment, Asher, Jason, and Rob reveal damning episodes of bargaining from their personal histories (involving green consumerism and cult-like devotion to technology). Having admitted their sins, they discuss the allure of false solutions to our environmental predicaments and how even veteran environmental journalists can be susceptible to it. Stay to the end for thoughts on how to a...
The House Is Quite Literally on Fire: Peter Kalmus on the Climate Emergency Hitting Home
Peter Kalmus, climate scientist and returning friend of Crazy Town, used to live in Altadena, California, where one of the disastrous Los Angeles wildfires struck on January 7th. Having learned that his former house had burned, Peter penned an emotional article for the New York Times about his family's decision to leave LA two years prior, out of safety concerns about frequent heat waves, drought, and just the sort of tragic conflagration that has reduced parts of LA to ashes. Get Peter's take on this historic wildfire, what nature is trying to teach us, and how to think about...
The Frequent Flyer Tree: Losing the Last Bit of Sense in the Climate Emergency
In the world of college sports, money talks and the volleyball team walks, er, flies 33,000 miles to play games. The NCAA, like almost everyone else, is playing games with Mother Nature. What do we expect student-athletes to gain from ignoring the climate emergency (not to mention putting their health at risk)? Who cares, as long as we can wring a few more dollars out of the TV deals -- am I right?!? Jason, Rob, and Asher propose a new plan for college sports and for taking the climate emergency seriously.
On a happy note: FeedSpot ranked Crazy...
Shotgunning Hedwig: The Dilemma of Invasives and the Bizarre Decision to Slaughter Barred Owls
The US Fish and Wildlife Service decided to "manage" barred owls by shooting half a million of them over the next three decades. Jason, Rob, and Asher (along with the postal workers at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry) are upset about this plan for addressing the predicament of invasive species. Surely there's a finer tool than a double-barreled shotgun for conserving ecosystems and protecting the species that inhabit them.
Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.
Sources/Links/Notes:
Bill Lucia, "Plan Finalized to Kill Thousands of Barred Owls around Northwest," Washington...Breaking News: Crazy Town Joins the Newly Formed Department of Entropy
Rob, Jason, and Asher talk about joining the new Trump Administration, at least until Elon Musk eradicates it. They explore the implications of Trump 2.0 through three reality-bending lenses – shifting baselines, entropy, and the upside of down – and three ways of responding: resistance, resilience, and regeneration. They decided they couldn’t stomach a fourth R – respect.
We’ve added something new to this and future episodes: VIDEO! If you’d like to feel even more like you’re in the room with the Crazy Town gang, please check out the video and let us know what you think.
Warnin...
Bonus: Human Nature Odyssey
Sometimes you just wanna hear from someone else. In this bonus episode, Alex Leff enters Crazy Town to introduce his podcast, Human Nature Odyssey. Before playing the first episode of the podcast, Jason, Rob, and Asher find lots of laughs with Alex as they contemplate environmental destruction, gorilla suits, the fate of civilization, tandem bike rides, imaginary games, and how to make a podcast. If you need a little more encouragement to check out Human Nature Odyssey, our friend Tom Murphy (author of the Do the Math blog) gives it his highest recommendation.
Warning: This podcast occasionally...
Escaping Escapism: What a Bizarre Rodent Ritual Can Teach Us About Navigating a World We Can't Really Escape
After a full season of trying to escape more than a dozen evil -isms (fun things like capitalism, industrialism, extremism, and otherism), Rob, Jason, and Asher come to one conclusion: there is no true escape -- at least not for those of us who want to help their communities collapse and re-emerge gracefully. Join the boys as they explore what the cult classic Groundhog Day has to teach us about navigating the endlessly insane world of modernity and reflect on key lessons and actionable steps we can all take to navigate the Great Unraveling of environmental and social systems.<...
Escaping Otherism: Why Dr. Seuss Could Never Find a Rhyme for Genocide
The drive to belong to an in-group and the tendency to observe differences in others are core parts of the human condition. But differentiating can (and often does) turn deadly when it morphs into othering. Jason, Rob, and Asher try not to other one another as they explore the roots and consequences of othering, and the ins and outs of belonging as a key organizing principle of society.
Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.
Sources/Links/Notes:
Wes Tank rapping Fox in SocksThe Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. SeussDefinition of othering from t...Escaping Extremism: Slap Fighting Our Way to a More Civil Society
The forces of media, technology, and even the wiring of our own brains seem aligned to draw people toward extremism. But never fear: Asher, Jason, and Rob unpack why we're so susceptible to wackadoodle viewpoints and offer ways to tamp down extremist thinking and behavior in ourselves, our communities, and across society. Along the way, they tour the worlds of extreme sports, extreme politics, and extreme yogurt. They even question their own decidedly non-mainstream views on the environment and the economy.
Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.
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...Escaping Humanocentrism: Why a Slime Mold Will Be President in 2028
The myth of human dominion and exceptionalism is as old as the Bible and as unquestioned as gravity, at least in "modern" society. Rob, Asher, and Jason explore the ways that humanocentrism has come to dominate the planet and our minds, while pointing to ancient and newly emerging ways that the more-than-human world is respected and protected, even the dung beetle.
Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.
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Eileen Crist defines (and critiques) anthropocentrism.Global biomass of wild mammalsGlobal human-made mass exceeds all living biomass.Decline of pollinatorsDecline...Escaping Individualism: Why Rickey Don't Like It When Rickey Feels Lonely
The epidemic of loneliness isn't just a product of technology or even capitalism -- it has its roots in the same fertile ground as the founding of the United States. And it may just be the most important "ism" of all to escape as we enter the Great Unraveling of social and environmental systems.
Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.
Sources/Links/Notes:
Definition of individualism from the American Psychological AssociationArticle in Opumo magazine - "Super singles: 10 coolest one seater cars"U.S. Surgeon General's 2023 report: Our Epidemic of Loneliness...Escaping Imperialism: Where Does Darth Vader Get His Lithium?
Perhaps no community has undergone more versions of imperialism than the tiny island nation of Nauru, which has morphed from being "Pleasant Island" to the mined-out home of offshore banks, discarded refugees, and deep sea mining interests. Jason, Rob, and Asher take a bad trip to wrap their heads around Nauru, the topic of "psychedelic imperialism," and imperialism's new frontier - the clean energy transition.
Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.
Sources/Links/Notes:
"A Dark History of the World's Smallest Island Nation" tells the tale of Nauru.S.J...
