Crazy Town

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. This time, Jason, Rob, and Asher are making their way through their top 3 signs of civilizational collapse, in 3 categories: Earth systems, pop culture, and politics. But they refuse to remain mired in the muck. Each draft pick has to be accompanied by a countervailing force, a real-world example of people facing reality and building resilience together. Originally recorded on 5/22/26.

Sources & Links
The 'Doomsday' Glacier's Giant Ice Shelf by Alison George, New Scientist, May 18, 2026
Thwaites glacier in Antarctica
Antarctica’s ‘doomsday glacier’ by Hope Nguyen, Yahoo! News, May 20, 2026
Plastic-Eating Microbe by Hafsa Aslam, UC Davis, Apr 7, 2025
Gardening google search trend
Advances in AI will boost productivity, by Mark A. Wynne and Lillian Derr, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, June 24, 205
Dallas Fed Chart 3 Possible AI Futures by Rudo Chakrabarti, Yahoo! Finance, May 9, 2026
Local governments oases of compromise by Alexandra Marquez, NBC News, Oct 23, 2024
North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre collapse by Laurie Laybourn, IPPR.org, Oct 9, 2024
Global Tipping Points: Atlantic Circulation
The most pro-business Supreme Court ever by Felix Salmon, Axios, Aug 4, 2022
Voting Rights Decision, New York Times, May 28, 2026
Planetary Boundaries framework
Land System Change
Willamette Valley Wet Prairie
Willamette Valley Upland Prairie and Savanna
Maps of Crazy Town: Mar de Plastico by Rob Dietz, Resilience, Sep 4, 2025
The Land Trust Alliance
Community Land Trusts
How F1 Became the Fastest Growing Sport in the U.S. by Douglas Jase, Complex, May 6, 2026
Fatalities in F1 racing
Explainer: What’s happening with gerrymandering in the United States—and who will “win” the redistricting battle? Harvard Kennedy School, May 4, 2026
Democracy was never designed to work — but something better is emerging by Jeremy Lent, Resilience, May 6, 2026

Related Episodes
Episode 96, “The Frequent Flyer Tree: Losing the Last Bit of Sense in the Climate Emergency”
Episode 103, “It Was Never Your Democracy Anyway: Thomas Linzey on Rethinking the Constitution”

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.

It’d be easy, with the clusterf**k of crazy-making economic, geopolitical, and democracy-in-decline news dominating the scene, to forget that the unraveling of environmental systems waits for no person. That’s why we’ve asked Emily Schoerning to return to Crazy Town. Asher and Emily sit down together (uh, virtually) 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. In this episode they discuss the possibility of a 2026-2027 Super El Niño, the growing risks of an AMOC collapse, and how each of us can approach near- and longer-term resilience.
Originally recorded on 5/20/26.

Sources & Links
American Resiliency
Links to graphs/resources that Emily mentioned:
NOAA ENSO Update (see page 23)
Columbia El Nino Update
Climate Reanalyzer (to visualize average SST changes as a graph)
Zach Labe's visualizations (to visualize currently non-apocalyptic Antarctic sea ice)
Copernicus (to visualize SST anomalies on world map)
Atlantic meridional overturning circulation slowdown modulates atmospheric rivers in a warmer climate by Mimi, M. S., Liu, W., Ma, W., & Chen, G. Nature Communications, 2026
Articles/papers related to AMOC and El Nino:
Observational constraints project a ~50% AMOC weakening by the end of this century by Portmann, V., Swingedouw, D., Khattab, O., & Chavent, M. Science Advances, 2026
Critical Atlantic current significantly more likely to collapse than thought by Carrington, D. The Guardian, April 15, 2026
El Niño/Southern Oscillation (Enso) Diagnostic Discussion, Climate Prediction Center, 14 May 2026
A'super El Niño?‘ The Conversation, May 14, 2026

Related Episodes
Episode 119, “Getting Real about Resiliency with Emily Schoerning”

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.

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.

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.

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.