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Crazy TownAuthor: 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 were 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 youre 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, youll 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 Schwarzeneggers 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-mo Language: en Genres: Earth Sciences, Nature, Science Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it Trailer: |
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EVs on Speed: The Jevons Paradox Strikes Again
Episode 117
Wednesday, 14 January, 2026
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...
