Crazy Town

Feb 03 2025 136 ep. 51 mins 2.6k

Crazy Town Podcast artwork

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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The House Is Quite Literally on Fire: Peter Kalmus on the Climate Emergency Hitting Home

Feb 03 2025 53 mins

Send us a text 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 abou

The Frequent Flyer Tree: Losing the Last Bit of Sense in the Climate Emergency

Jan 15 2025 30 mins

Send us a textIn 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

Shotgunning Hedwig: The Dilemma of Invasives and the Bizarre Decision to Slaughter Barred Owls

Dec 18 2024 33 mins

Send us a textThe 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

Breaking News: Crazy Town Joins the Newly Formed Department of Entropy

Nov 27 2024 45 mins

Send us a textRob, 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

Bonus: Human Nature Odyssey

Jul 31 2024 40 mins

Send us a textSometimes 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 game

Escaping Escapism: What a Bizarre Rodent Ritual Can Teach Us About Navigating a World We Can't Really Escape

Jun 19 2024 66 mins

Send us a textAfter 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 Groundh

Escaping Otherism: Why Dr. Seuss Could Never Find a Rhyme for Genocide

Jun 12 2024 78 mins

Send us a textThe 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 pr

Escaping Extremism: Slap Fighting Our Way to a More Civil Society

Jun 05 2024 66 mins

Send us a textThe 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

Escaping Humanocentrism: Why a Slime Mold Will Be President in 2028

May 29 2024 70 mins

Send us a textThe 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.War

Escaping Individualism: Why Rickey Don't Like It When Rickey Feels Lonely

May 22 2024 71 mins

Send us a textThe 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