What does a livable future look like 100 years from now? If we unlocked unlimited green energy, what would we actually do with it? And are our dreams of a renewable-energy utopia sometimes just as delusional as the old fossil-fueled, drill-baby-drill mentality?

Alex Leff of the Human Nature Odyssey podcast hosts this special Crazy Town highlights compilation. Alex revisits some of the most thought-provoking moments from Crazy Town, weaving in new commentary and context. Together, we explore energy literacy, the promises and pitfalls of a renewable-energy transition, and why toasting a simple slice of bread is much harder than you might think.

Along the way, we meet an Olympic athlete trying to toast bread with nothing but a bicycle. We also step inside a billionaire’s latest invention—a time-travel device designed to fling us one hundred years into the future.

Stay tuned for Part 2, where we take the full leap into the time machine and imagine what life a century from now could really look like in a post high-energy future.

Sources/Links/Notes:

• The Toaster Challenge, Olympic Cyclist Vs. Toaster: Can He Power It?, 2015
• Tom Murphy, Galactic-Scale Energy, Do the Math, 2011.
• Tom Murphy, Limits to Economic Growth, Nature Physics, August, 2022.
• Solar Freakin' Roadways, Indiegogo, 2014
• Human Nature Odyssey podcast

Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:

Episode 3 "1.21 Jigawatts: Energy Literacy and the Real Scoop on Fossil Fuels"

Episode 5 "Solar Freakin' Roadways: How Technological Optimism Undermines Sustainability"

Episode 106 "Blinded by the Light - Facing Reality with Renewable Energy"

ADDITIONAL MUSIC

Modified version of "Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30" by Strauss, from classicals.de — licensed under CC BY 4.0

There’s the book club, the Rotary Club, the Mickey Mouse Club, and the club sandwich. Whatever your preference, you might want to think about joining a club. Social clubs, fraternal orders, and the like have had a storied and critical role in public life. That is, until government programs and technology gave us an out from having to deal with each other. But with modernity failing, will clubs and community organizations make a huge comeback? In this episode we explore club life – past, present, and future, if there is one. Originally recorded on 11/6/25.

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon & Schuster, 2000.
• John Michael Greer, "Secret Handshakes," The Archdruid Report, January 21, 2010.

Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:

Episode 65, "Why the Polycrisis Is a Statistical Anomaly: The Willful Delusions of the World’s Leading Pseudointellectual"

Frog and Toad Are Friends, at least according to a venerable children’s book. And so are Jason (Crazy Town’s resident biology nerd) and conservationist brothers, Kyle and Trevor Ritland, authors of The Golden Toad: An Ecological Mystery and the Search for a Lost Species. The three eco-explorers connect over wondrous habitats and critters in Costa Rica's cloud forest and swap stories that cover Lazarus species, global pandemics, self-taught naturalists, birding, and even pregnancy tests. Spliced into the nostalgia and stories are reflections on how to cope in a world where biodiversity is declining and how to regain the connections that modernity has severed between humanity and wild nature. Originally recorded on 10/9/25.

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Kyle and Trevor Ritland, The Golden Toad: An Ecological Mystery and the Search for a Lost Species, Diversion Books, 2025.
• Adventure Term, Kyle and Trevor's nonprofit experiential learning initiative

Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:

• Episode 40, "Nature Detachment and Ecocide, or… the Story of the Marauding Mountain Lion"
• Episode 49, "A Day at the Zoo Is No Walk in the Park: Humanity’s Overexploitation of Animals and Nature"