An Inconvenient Apocalypse with Bob Jensen (Bonus episode of Crazy Town)

Bob Jensen has written a book with Wes Jackson titled An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis, and the Fate of Humanity. With a title like that, Jason and Bob have lots of heavy ground to cover, including overshoot, the limits to growth, and the cascading environmental and social crises of our times. They conclude that there are no easy answers or silver-bullet solutions, but by focusing on sustainable size of the human population, appropriate scale of social organization, optimal scope of human competence for managing high-energy modernity, and required speed of taking action to avoid catastrophe, they home in on some strategic responses to the crises. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

Transcript

Melody Travers Allison

Hi, this is producer Melody Travers Allison. Welcome to our latest bonus episode of Crazy Town. This time, Jason goes in depth with Bob Jensen, former professor of journalism at the University of Texas, and a tireless advocate for environmental health and social justice. Bob recently wrote a book with Wes Jackson called. “An Inconvenient Apocalypse.” With a title like that, we saw our chance to bring you yet another lighthearted, whimsical topic. Before you get to the interview, please take a minute to subscribe, rate, you know, do those things that help others make their way to Crazy Town now for the interview.

Read more

The Politics of Overconsumption and Getting the Scale Right

No matter how difficult the transition may be, in the not too distant future we will have to live in far smaller and more flexible social organizations than today’s nation-states and cities.

Caught Up in Complexity

It turns out that what’s good for humans (in the short term) is not necessarily good for nature. In our current—utterly unsustainable—mode, choices that are thought to be good for humans are usually decidedly terrible choices for the planet and therefore ultimately bad for us, too. Take care of the real world first, and then you can have dessert.

Climate change and the limits of economic growth

The only effective way to control carbon emissions, as well as related problems of pollution and biodiversity loss, is to address “overshoot,” the unconstrained use of energy and material resources well beyond planetary limits, particularly in the richer parts of the world.