Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
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.
Our journey begins in the Philippines with farmer, chef, entrepreneur, and environmentalist Louise Mabulo. From her early start on MasterChef Junior to founding The Culinary Lounge and The Cacao Project, Louise works to reconnect people with the land—and the food they grow and eat.
The daily commute is more than an inconvenience; it is a major source of pollution and wasted time. As return-to-office demands grow, remote work may be one of the most overlooked tools for reducing emissions while improving quality of life and accessibility.
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.
The gap between the beckoning future of an ecocivilization and today’s grim reality is only too clear. But to the extent that meaningful hope does arise, it emerges from the very ruptures of our present breakdown. As the weave of our dominant system unravels, possibilities emerge to reweave our societal fabric into a new design.
In the end, proforestation offers us a choice about who we wish to become. We can continue to treat forests as instruments to repair a damaged atmosphere, pulling them into our orbit as another tool in a human-centred project. Or we can accept their invitation to live differently: to slow down, to restrain ourselves, to share space and time with other beings whose existence does not revolve around us.
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.
Several commentators have remarked that the United States’ war on Iran carries echoes of 2008. A potential financial crash this year could actually be much worse.
The eclipse, then, is an invitation. Not a warning or a demand, but a quiet reminder that clarity is possible. Justice has not abandoned us. We stepped out of alignment with it, and we can step back. The shadow will stay as long as we remain in it, but it will fade the moment we stop standing in it.
The 24-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, through which roughly 20 percent of world oil shipments pass, is an obvious pinch point for a vital industrial resource. But it also serves as an apt metaphor for the brittle global supply chains upon which the entire economy depends.
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.
Human communities have benefitted immensely from trees, but tree communities (i.e., forests) haven’t always fared so well in the bargain. What can we do differently to ensure a forested future?
