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Crazy Town

Crazy Town

By: 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 Biological Sciences Earth Sciences Nature & Ecology Science
Episodes
  • Join the 2026 Crazy Town Hall

    Join the 2026 Crazy Town Hall
    Jun 10 2026

    Join your fellow Crazy Townies by registering at resilience.org/crazytownhall

    The Crazy Town Hall is a live, online get-together for our most engaged listeners, affectionately known as Crazy Townies. The Town Hall is your chance to hang out with Jason, Rob, and Asher – and your fellow Crazy Townies – as we continue our arduous journey to the center of a collapsing techno-industrial, politically incompetent civilization. This 75-minute event will feature plenty of lampoonery, fun pop quizzes, and even good ideas for building community resilience.

    Like any respectable political circus these days, this event is also a fundraiser. So please consider making a donation to our modest nonprofit organization, and join us for some fun at the Crazy Town Hall.
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    2 mins
  • The Hypocrite’s Guide to the Galaxy: Muddling Toward a Sustainable Footprint

    The Hypocrite’s Guide to the Galaxy: Muddling Toward a Sustainable Footprint
    Jun 3 2026

    Is hypocrisy the one thing that can grow infinitely on our finite planet? When you learn that humanity’s fossil fuel burning, including your own, is contributing to climate chaos, what can you do? When you understand that economic growth and consumption are causing habitat loss and the sixth mass extinction, can you opt out? As long as you are embedded in an unsustainable society, it’s hard not to be a hypocrite. At the same time, dropping out seems isolating and ineffective, if you can even do it. Join Jason, Asher, and Rob as they hit the confessional to examine the challenges and psychology of hypocrisy. Originally recorded on 4/23/26.

    Sources & Links
    • Hassan Fathy
    • A Short History of Endurance by Charlotte Del Signore
    • Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution by Peter Kalmus
    • Nature’s Best Hope by Doug Tallamy
    • Homegrown National Park
    • "What Is the Window of Tolerance, and Why Is It So Important?" Psychology Today, May 23, 2022.
    • Asher recommends taking 20 minutes to sit down with this worksheet to better understand triggers/signs for when you’re either in hyperarousal (fight/flight) or hypoarousal (freeze).

    Related Episodes
    • Episode 16, “The 10,000-Mile Cod and Insane Global Trade”

    Credits

    Production and editing by Alex Leff. Editorial assistance and transcripts by Taylor Antal.

    Theme music is “Way Huge” and “Don’t Give Up” by Midnight Shipwrecks, used with permission.

    Thanks to all the Crazy Townies, our listeners who are trying to understand humanity's overshoot predicament and do something about it.
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • The Lighter Side of Dark Ages with Chris Smaje

    The Lighter Side of Dark Ages with Chris Smaje
    May 20 2026

    Chris Smaje visits Crazy Town for some farmer-to-farmer straight talk with Jason Bradford. Are these two long lost cousins? Both dropped out of academia years ago to become philosophizing farmers (can we call them “pharmers” with a “ph,” as in PhD?!?). Chris’s latest book, Finding Lights in a Dark Age: Sharing Land, Work and Craft explores how we can move from modernity’s unsustainable political economy toward a re-organization of society, driven by communities and local food systems. In this wide-ranging conversation, Chris and Jason cover everything from Viking raids to agrarian populism, from societal collapse to the practicalities of making your way in a failed state. And they can’t get away from the shop talk of gardens, livestock, and home economics. Originally recorded on 4/2/26.

    Sources & Links
    • Chris Smaje’s Blog
    • Finding Lights in a Dark Age by Chris Smaje
    • Excerpt of the book on Resilience
    • Second excerpt on Resilience
    • Review: Saying NO to Ecomodermism. Smaje Versus Monbiot, It’s No Contest

    Related Episodes
    • Episode 98, “Bargaining With Collapse: A Superabundance of Lab Grown Meat and Dryer Balls”

    Credits

    Production and editing by Alex Leff. Editorial assistance and transcripts by Taylor Antal.

    Theme music is “Way Huge” and “Don’t Give Up” by Midnight Shipwrecks, used with permission.

    Thanks to all the Crazy Townies, our listeners who are trying to understand humanity's overshoot predicament and do something about it.
    Show More Show Less
    58 mins
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