All of humanity’s feats, whether a record-setting deadlift by the world’s strongest man or the construction of a gleaming city by a technologically advanced economy, originate from a single hidden source: positive net energy. Having surplus energy in the form of thirteen pounds of food per day enables a very big man, Hafthor Bjornsson, to lift very big objects. Similarly, having surplus energy in the form of fossil fuel enables very big societies to build and trade very big piles of stuff. Maybe Hafthor has a rock-solid plan for keeping his dinner plate well stocked, but no society seems ready to have a mature conversation about how our sprawling cities and nations will manage as net energy declines. Calling our conversation “mature” might be a stretch, but at least we’re willing to address climate change, sustainability, and the rest of the net energy conundrum head on. Alice Friedemann, author of Life after Fossil Fuels, joins the conversation. Originally recorded on April 10, 2021.

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Put on your best polyester pants, grab a bunch of gleaming mylar balloons, and crack open a case of bottled water. In today's episode, we're entering the plastic world of plastic pollution in all its glorious plasticity. We're on the hunt for microplastics – and we won’t have to go very far, as they're present everywhere – in the soil, in the water, in the air, and in our bodies. We'll be looking for systemic solutions and talking with Matt Simon, author of the book A Poison Like No Other.

Originally recorded on 7/10/25.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Matt Simon, A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies, Island Press, October 27, 2022.
• Katie Okamoto, "Microplastics Are Everywhere. Here’s How to Avoid Eating Them." New York Times, April 21, 2025.
• Ocean Cleanup (large organization with a popular, but frustrating, ecomodernist approach to plastic pollution).
• Jen Fela, "Global Plastics Treaty Delayed, but Not Defeated," Earth Island Journal, December 11, 2024.

Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:

• Episode 84, "Escaping Technologyism"

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The “tragedy of the commons” is an idea that has so thoroughly seeped into culture and law that it seems normal for people and corporations to own land, water, and even whole ecosystems. But there’s a BIG problem: the “tragedy” part of it has been debunked – it really should be the triumph of the commons. Learn the origin story of privatization and explore the true meaning of commons and how to manage them for sustainability and equity. Also check out our suggestions for championing the commons (beyond Robin Hood’s strategy of stabbing the aristocracy). Originally recorded on 2/10/22.

• The oddity of the queen’s ownership of swans
• More about the swans
• An Act Concerning Swans (1482)
• Simon Fairlie wrote the article “A Short History of Enclosure in Britain” in The Land (2009).
• Briony McDonagh and Carl Griffin wrote “Occupy! Historical geographies of property, protest and the commons, 1500-1850,” Journal of Historical Geography (2016).
• Stephen Knight of the University of Melbourne writes about Robin Hood and the Forest Laws.
• Stephen Quilley & Katharine Zywert wrote the article “Livelihood, Market and State: What Does a Political Economy Predicated on the ‘Individual-in-Group-in-Place’ Actually Look Like?,” Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-23, July 2019.
• Munro Fraser and Thomas Mande wrote a report called The Commons in a Wellbeing Economy, a briefing paper published by the Wellbeing Economy Alliance.
• David Bollier wrote the outstanding and super-readable book The Commoner’s Catalog for Changemaking: Tools for the Transitions Ahead.
• On the Commons has been helping to build a commons movement since 2001.
• Peter Barnes has written many articles and books about property rights and the commons.
• “Elinor Ostrom’s 8 rules for managing the commons” based on Derek Wall’s book Elinor Ostrom’s Rules for Radicals

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