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.
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 25, 2026 • 54min
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 ranging conversation, they discuss why “leveling down” might be the best strategy for navigating late stage capitalism and bringing ourselves back into right relationship with each other and the planet. Originally recorded on 2/24/26.Sources/Links/Notes:Team HumanDouglas Rushkoff YouTube ChannelDouglas Rushkoff, “You Are Not Crazy,” Substack, January 7, 2026Douglas Rushkoff, “Survival of the Richest,” Medium, July 5, 2018Jesse Armstrong, Mountainhead, 2025 filmDan Fogelman, Paradise, Hulu, 2025 seriesProsperaNeomCalifornia ForeverJack Manno, Privileged Goods, 1999 bookRelated episode(s) of Crazy Town:Tech Bros on Acid with Douglas Rushkoff (Bonus episode of Crazy Town) It’s All Paradox with Douglas Rushkoff (Bonus episode of Crazy Town)
Mar 11, 2026 • 41min
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 Nevada petroglyphs,” The Art Newspaper, November 10, 2022Owen Clarke, “A Utah Woman Must Pay $15,000 in Fines for Vandalizing Ancient Petroglyphs,” Outside Magazine, November 20, 2025Lehman’s CatalogJohn Prine, “Paradise” 1971 songX post on Brian Johnson’s erections, February 11, 2024Epic of GilgameshTompkins Conservancy and Patagonia National ParkInstituto TerraEric Grundhauser, “Visit a Beard That Killed Its Owner,” Atlas Obscura, January 26, 2018Raoul WallenbergRelated episode(s) of Crazy Town:Crazy Town Classics “Terror Management Theory”Episode 51, “A Load of Papal Bull: Greenlighting Colonization and the Mindset of Extraction”Episode 54, “Colonizing the Sky: The Untold Environmental Toll of Skyscrapers”Episode 92, “Escaping Otherism: Why Dr. Seuss Could Never Find a Rhyme for Genocide”
Feb 25, 2026 • 1h 1min
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 die. Follow Jason, Rob, and Asher as they try not to deny climate change, vilify any out-groups, or assault one another while diving into the topic of death. In the Do-the-Opposite segment, Michael Hebb (author of Let’s Talk about Death over Dinner) shares wisdom for developing a healthier relationship with death. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website. Originally recorded on December 22, 2020.
Feb 11, 2026 • 55min
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.Sources/Links/Notes:American ResiliencyMark Rober YouTube ChannelSixth National Climate Assessment, International Panel on Climate ChangeRelated episode(s) of Crazy Town:Episode 8, “Mosquito-Flavored Popcorn, or What Climate Scientists Are Getting Wrong”Episode 34, “Fear of Death and Climate Denial, or… the Story of Wolverine and the Screaming Mole of Doom”Episode 37, “Discounting the Future and Climate Chaos, or… the Story of the Dueling Economists”Episode 45, “Feedback Loops and Climate Catastrophe, or… the Story of the Baseball Bloodbath”Episode 77, “The Elon Musk Episode about Elon Musk Brought to You by Elon Musk”Episode 97, “The House Is Quite Literally on Fire: Peter Kalmus on the Climate Emergency Hitting Home”
Jan 28, 2026 • 34min
Choose 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.Sources/Links/Notes:“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 podcast, June 14, 2023“Elon Musk on DOGE, Optimus, Starlink Smartphones, Evolving with AI, Why the West is Imploding” All In podcast, September 9, 2025“Is there an A.I. Bubble? And What if It Pops?” The Daily, November 20, 2025 Hanna Rosin, The Atlantic, “What If AI Is a Bubble?” The Atlantic, November 13, 2025Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:Episode 77, “The Elon Musk Episode about Elon Musk Brought to You by Elon Musk”Episode 84, “Escaping Technologyism: Dreams of AI Sheep and the Deadliest Word in Film History”Episode 101 “Even AI Chatbots Hate Us: The Rise of the New Luddites, with Brian Merchant”
Jan 14, 2026 • 43min
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.Russ Heaps, "Heaviest Electric Vehicles of 2025," Kelley Blue Book, April 7, 2025.Wikipedia article on energy efficiency in transport that includes a table that compares many modes of transportWilliam Stanley Jevons, The Coal Question: An Inquiry concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of our Coal-mines (London: Macmillan and Co., 1866). 2nd edition, revised.Tomas Kloucek, "Darkness as an Endangered Species: Why Light Pollution Matters," Earth Bridge, June 11, 2025.Scenic America, "Billboards in the Sky: The Hidden Culprit Behind Light Pollution," July 30, 2025.Prepared Mind, "Welcome to the Great Unraveling (Tapestry Cloud Style Reweaving Polycrisis into Polyopportunity," June 20, 2025.2,000 Watt SocietyCalculate your ecological footprint.Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:Episode 3, "One Point Twenty-One Jigawatts"Episode 19, "I Can’t Drive... 35! The Rationale for Rationing"Episode 101, "Even AI Chatbots Hate Us: The Rise of the New Luddites, with Brian Merchant"
5 snips
Dec 17, 2025 • 56min
Sane Town: A Realistic Vision of Life 100 Years from Now
Join Alex Leff, host of the Human Nature Odyssey podcast, as he explores a realistic future 100 years from now, away from the shiny techno-utopias we've been promised. Expect whimsical scenes of communal village life, low-energy lifestyles, and engaging with nature. The discussion ventures into how we might navigate local governance, the importance of preserving skills, and the reshaping of economies towards bioregional systems. With humor and insight, they muse over the blend of work and play while preparing for a resilient, grounded existence.
Dec 3, 2025 • 37min
Toasting Bread Is WAY Harder Than You Think: The Challenges of a Renewable Energy Future
Alex Leff, host of the Human Nature Odyssey podcast, dives deep into the complexities of our renewable energy future. He discusses how our fantasies of infinite green energy might be as unrealistic as our past dependence on fossil fuels. Featuring the entertaining Toaster Challenge, where an Olympic cyclist attempts to toast bread, the conversation reveals just how energy-intensive simple tasks can be. Leff also critiques techno-optimism and explores the need to downscale our consumption and rethink our energy goals for a sustainable future.
Nov 19, 2025 • 52min
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.Sources/Links/Notes:Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon & Schuster, 2000.John Michael Greer, "Secret Handshakes," The Archdruid Report, January 21, 2010.Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:Episode 65, "Why the Polycrisis Is a Statistical Anomaly: The Willful Delusions of the World’s Leading Pseudointellectual"
Nov 5, 2025 • 51min
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 connections that modernity has severed between humanity and wild nature. Originally recorded on 10/9/25.Sources/Links/Notes:Kyle and Trevor Ritland, The Golden Toad: An Ecological Mystery and the Search for a Lost Species, Diversion Books, 2025.Adventure Term, Kyle and Trevor's nonprofit experiential learning initiativeRelated episode(s) of Crazy Town:Episode 40, "Nature Detachment and Ecocide, or… the Story of the Marauding Mountain Lion"Episode 49, "A Day at the Zoo Is No Walk in the Park: Humanity’s Overexploitation of Animals and Nature"
