The “maximum power principle” may sound like the doctrine of an evil supervillain, but it actually applies to all living creatures. The principle states that biological systems organize to increase power whenever constraints allow. Given the way humans adhere to this principle, especially by overexploiting fossil fuels, we often do behave like supervillains, wielding power in wildly irresponsible ways and triggering climate change, biodiversity loss, and other aspects of our sustainability predicament. Sometimes it seems like we’re using a backhoe to dig our own grave. Fortunately, once you understand efficiency and its different flavors, you can see opportunities to optimize power rather than maximize it. While considering the outlook for humanity, the Crazy Townies ponder a weird question: are we smarter than reindeer? Richard Heinberg, author of Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival, joins the team to share his research on how people can optimize power. Originally recorded on May 6, 2021.

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Richard Heinberg’s book is Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival.
• John DeLong’s definition of the maximum power principle is that biological systems organize to increase power whenever the system constraints allow.
• DeLong also wrote: “The maximum power principle predicts the outcomes of two-species competition experiments“.
• Statistics on the Bagger 293 bucket-wheel excavator
• Dams powered airplane and ship building in the Pacific Northwest (Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams).
• The cross-Atlantic sailing voyage of Greta Thunberg
• Short comic with the story of reindeer on St. Matthew Island
• Episode of the Radiolab podcast with a wild story about mTOR

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Maximize profits, exploit nature, hoard money, and, like Buzz Lightyear, grow the economy to infinity and beyond! That’s the modern economic playbook. But for decades, one renegade country has taken a contrarian stance that actually cares about people’s wellbeing and environmental health: the Himalayan nation of Bhutan. When Bhutan embraced “Gross National Happiness” and a sane notion of progress, environmentalists and social reformers rejoiced. They spotlighted Bhutan as an example of how we can build a better economy. But now it seems that no one can escape the gravity field of techno-capitalism’s black hole of cryptocurrency and bullshit investments. In today’s episode, we explore Bhutan’s dark turn and go on the hunt for other examples of nations doing things to curb overexploitation of people and the planet.

Originally recorded on 7/21/25. Visit Crazy Town on the web.

Sources/Links/Notes:

• To be fair, Bhutan is still working on Gross National Happiness. In fact, there's a Global GNH Forum being staged November 7-12, 2025 in Dungkar Dzong, Paro, Bhutan.
• Steven Anderson, "Bhutan Uses Bitcoin to Boost Salaries and Curb Brain Drain," The Currency Analytics, April 15, 2025.
• The creation of Nunavut

Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:

• Episode 37, "Discounting the Future and Climate Chaos"

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In this episode we travel in time to the year 2125, to visit the Crazy Town museum, which showcases today’s world of wanton consumption and profligate waste. How will humans in 2125 – if there are any of us left – judge the things everyone sees as normal today? Jason, Rob, and Asher take turns serving as expert curators of this future museum, nominating items that best encapsulate how foolish and environmentally ruinous our priorities are. At the end we call on you, dear listener, to share what you would include in the museum.

Originally recorded on 7/11/25. Visit Crazy Town on the web.

(Spoiler Alert) View Artifacts in the Museum:

• Sportscar hopping from skyscraper to skyscraper (from the movie Furious 7)
• "Ronnie Fieg Has Mastered The Art Of Collecting" in Haute Magazine
• Echo PB-9010T backpack leaf blower
• SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, California
• Ronald Reagan’s 1985 inaugural address
• Barbie Pool Party Playset
• The world's biggest landfill in Las Vegas, Nevada
• The world's largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean Icon of the Seas
• Jimmy Dean blueberry pancakes and sausage on a stick

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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. Visit Crazy Town on the web.

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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As Trump’s tariffs kick in, the Republican party is suddenly spouting anti-consumerist rhetoric that would make the Lorax smile. Should we cheer on this accidental experiment in economic shrinkage, or will this ham-fisted set of trade policies cause a backlash against the proponents of degrowth? As political confusion reigns, we offer eco-localism as the no-regrets way to build community resilience in the face of unprecedented ineptitude that probably won’t go away anytime soon. Originally recorded on 6/16/25.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Abundance, Avid Reader Press, March 2025.
• UN Alliance For Sustainable Fashion addresses the damage of ‘fast fashion’
• Kelsey Piper, "Trump’s bizarre new push to make us poorer," Vox, February 7, 2025.
• Kenneth Pucker, "Lessons From Trump’s Degrowth Experiment," Business of Fashion, May 9, 2025.
• Kenneth Bradsher, "China’s Chokehold on This Obscure Mineral Threatens the West’s Militaries," New York Times, June 9, 2025.
• Adam Tooze, "Trump's futurism: Elon's rockets and fewer dolls for "baby girl," Chartbook, May 6, 2025.
• "The End of Fast Fashion?," The Daily, May 15, 2025.
• Kurt Cobb, "Trade war vise grip: China is squeezing rare earth supply and it’s hurting," Resilience, June 8, 2025.
• "Derek Thompson: Trump's War on Dolls," The Bulwark, May 2, 2025.
• Richard Heinberg, "How Eco-Localism Differs from Tariff Terrorism," Resilience, April 17, 2025.

Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:

• Episode 86, "Escaping Growthism"
• Episode 94, “Breaking News: Crazy Town joins the newly formed Department of Entropy”

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Solar panels and other modern energy technologies can be really useful, but the belief that we can technologize our way to a bigger and better society powered by clean energy is tragically flawed. Asher, Rob, and Jason dig into the up-and-down story of the Ivanpah concentrated solar power plant, review the Harry Potteresque thinking behind complex, centralized power plants, and expose the truth of the energy transition. After they finish making fun of concentrated solar/golf course/outlet mall complexes in the desert, they discuss how to make real progress on energy and sustainability. Originally recorded on 6/5/25.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Michael R. Blood, “11 years after a celebrated opening, massive solar plant faces a bleak future in the Mojave Desert,” AP News, January 30, 2025.
• Laura Paddison, "This alien-like field of mirrors in the desert was once the future of solar energy. It’s closing after just 11 years," CNN, February 13, 2025.
• Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy, January 1, 2024.
• Rachel Donald, “The ‘Energy Transition’ is a Pipe Dream | Jean-Baptiste Fressoz,” Planet: Critical podcast, March 19, 2025.
• Drax Power Station
• U.S. Department of Energy, Facts about Ivanpah
• Energy Monitor report on the opening of Ivanpah
• Louis Sahagun, "This Mojave Desert solar plant kills 6,000 birds a year. Here’s why that won’t change any time soon," Los Angeles Times, September 2, 2016.
• Annual carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions worldwide from 1940 to 2024

Resources for conservation and local solar power:

• Solar United Neighbors
• 2,000-Watt Society
• Peter Kalmus, Being the Change, New Society Publishers, July 10, 2017.
• Kris De Decker, "How to Build a Low-Tech Solar Panel," Resilience, October 21, 2021.
• Coop Power
• Seeds for the Sol
• The Institute for Local Self-Resilience has a community solar program.

Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:

• Episode 45 on feedback loops
• Episode 60 on air conditioning

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