Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
What happens when the global economy depends on fish traveling 10,000 miles, oil flowing through a single strait, and enough cheap fossil fuel energy to build civilizations that previous generations couldn’t even imagine?
While the U.S. celebrates its 250th anniversary, political attention is drifting away from climate change just as warming accelerates and Earth’s life-support systems approach collapse. From disappearing federal climate data to record-breaking heat, denial is giving way to something more dangerous: collective delusion.
With the churn of daily news growing more apocalyptic by the headline, and with earth scientists competing ferociously for the title of “gloomiest doomer,” it’s time for some fun (or at least making fun) with a new fantasy-football-style draft.
Emily Schoerning returns to discuss the oceanic dynamics – from worrisome to downright apocalyptic – that could make the Strait of Hormuz disruption look like a five-minute wait at the Starbucks drive-thru.
A recent study published in Nature Sustainability concluded that New Orleans residents should plan now to move away from the city. For the hundreds of thousands who live in New Orleans, and the millions of others who love the Crescent City, this is an incredibly sad conclusion. And it’s a conclusion that many other cities rich in culture and history around the world will face as sea levels rise.
Heat warning tools have become more sophisticated, yet public attention is still focused on record temperatures rather than the social conditions that turn heat into illness or even death. Why social risk, not temperature alone, should be at the center of how we report on extreme heat.
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?
Chris Smaje visits Crazy Town for some farmer-to-farmer straight talk. We cover 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.
We’re talking dam removal today. So grab a sledge hammer, a few sticks of dynamite, and a wrecking ball, and come along as we explore the battle between concrete placement and concrete removal. And don’t miss our interview with Tara Lohan, author of Undammed: Freeing Rivers and Bringing Communities to Life.
A Mapuche leader defends rivers not as resources, but as living beings. In this powerful conversation, Millaray Huichalaf shares how Indigenous wisdom, spirituality, and resistance are shaping a more balanced and life-sustaining future.
For the past couple of decades, we at Post Carbon Institute have been pointing out that a transition to alternative energy sources will necessarily be slow and incomplete. Given that oil is a depleting, polluting, non-renewable resource, industrial society is due for a reckoning. We are all in an extended Wile E. Coyote moment.
It’s really refreshing to hear from you, our listeners and fellow strugglers living in high-energy modernity (affectionately known as Crazy Townies). This mailbag episode offers the element of surprise, as it gives us a chance to respond with delight and spontaneity to your questions and comments.
