KunstlerCast - Suburban Sprawl: A Tragic Comedy
James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere, The Long Emergency, and World Made By Hand, takes on the converging catastrophes of the 21st century. Features a new guest each month. (Note: Episodes 1 - 214 featured conversations between Duncan Crary and JHK during the years 2008 through 2012 and focused on the topics of suburban sprawl, disposable architecture and the end of the cheap oil era.)

Charles Marohn is the Founder and President of Strong Towns (Strongtowns.org), a non-profit advocacy organization focused on the financial predicament local governments find themselves in as a result of America's suburban experiment. Chuck has a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota's Institute of Technology and a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute. Chuck and Jim are active members of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU.org) dedicated to improving the human habitat America.

Direct download: KunstlerCast_273.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 1:10pm EDT

KunstlerCast 272

A Conversation with Chris Martenson and Adam Taggart, authors of Prosper!: How to Prepare for the Future and Create a World Worth Inheriting. Both Chris and Adam were corporate executives who dropped out to pursue more a resilient way of life in a rapidly and increasingly hazardous changing world. Chris Martenson began that phase of his career with the video and later book titled The Crash Course, which undertook to explain the dangers of contemporary banking, finance, and money-creation. Chris and Adam maintain the front and back ends of the PeakProsperity.com website, which features weekly articles and two excellent podcasts on issues pertaining to what I have called The Long Emergency.

Direct download: KunstlerCast_272.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:42pm EDT

KunstlerCast 271

A conversation with Gail Tverberg of OurFiniteWorld.com. Gail Tverberg is an analyst who has been researching the connection between oil limits and the economy for nearly 10 years.  She writes a widely-followed blog called Our Finite World. Her background is as an actuary, working as a consultant to insurance companies. She also has a foot in the academic world, where she has lectured and written academic articles. Gail was in China in March-April of this year lecturing at China University of Petroleum in Beijing and is scheduled to return next spring, to teach another class.

Direct download: KunstlerCast_271.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 11:29am EDT

David Collum is the Betty R. Miller Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University. His technical expertise is in organic chemistry, but he has gained recognition for assorted podcasts and annual surveys focusing on politics and economics. Some of this latter content can be found at http://collum.chem.cornell.edu/dbc6/DBC_rogue.html

Direct download: KunstlerCast_270.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 5:43pm EDT

Also known as Steve From Virginia, this week’s guest has a unique take on the nexus of energy, capital, and the destiny of industrial civilization. Steve writes: “The credit regime is falling apart under the weight of its own costs, not just in Europe. Government issue money ends a monopoly over a vital private good so that it becomes a public good, in this way the power of the banks to run our affairs is reduced. As a necessary component of this effort, the establishment must hold the financiers accountable for their crimes and negligence. The present conditions and schemes cannot be endured any longer. If the establishment refuses to act the citizens will take matters into their own hands, there will be revolutions.”

--From http://www.economic-undertow.com

Direct download: KunstlerCast_269.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 11:50am EDT

Catherine Ingram is the author of In the Footsteps of Gandhi, Passionate Presence, and A Crack in Everything.  Since 1993 she has internationally led public events called Dharma Dialogues as well as retreats focusing on secular ways of inducing more wisdom, service, and well-being in one’s life.  She founded and is president of Living Dharma, an educational nonprofit organization and she serves on the boards of The Burma Project (a human rights organization) as well as Global Animal (an animal rights organization).  

Direct download: KunstlerCast268.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 9:28am EDT

Kunstlercast 267 - The Liminalist

#267  Conversation with Jasun Horsley of the Liminalist podcast and the Auticulture.com blog. A self-described high-functioning Asberger personality, Jason explores the margins of culture. A liminal condition is one of transition, sometimes turbulent, and we explore this in relation to politics and culture of the day — everything from corn-pone Nazis to sexual transgression. This is another effort to reach out a bit beyond my usual community of financial observers and energy commentators.

Direct download: KunstlerCast_267.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 7:56am EDT

#266  Conversation with Clark Strand, author of Waking Up to the Dark - Ancient Wisdom for a Sleepless Age. A former Buddhist monk, Clark Strand poses the question: has electric lighting compromised our humanness, damaged our spirits, and foreclosed our future? Does it represent much of what has gone wrong with modernity. We explore this and other facets of his lyrical and original new book.

Direct download: KunstlerCast_266.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:18pm EDT

#265 — Futurist, Strategic Analyst, podcaster and rock and roll musician Eric Garland, taking with JHK from the troubled heartland city of St. Louis, Mo. Among other things, Eric and I talk about the Big Box shopping model, the contagion of business idiocy in the USA, the causes behind the Ferguson riots of 2014, and the current financial system as a raft of fraud going down a river of no return. His “Competitive Futures” podcast is available free on iTunes. His website is www.competitivefutures.com

Direct download: KunstlerCast_265.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:52am EDT

Conversation with an aesthete. Graphic designer, blogger, dandy, and artist Allen Crawford (a.k.a. “Lord Whimsey”) yaks with JHK about the state of male presentation in America, the arc of cultural collapse, art, and Walt Whitman — he is the author of a beautifully illustrated hand-lettered volume of Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself,” published by Tin House Press and available at the usual suspects.

The KunstlerCast music is “Adam and Ali’s Waltz” from the recording Waiting to Fly by Mike and Ali Vass.

Direct download: KunstlerCast_264.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 11:15am EDT

KunstlerCast 263

#263 — Cultural historian, social critic and author Morris Berman yaks with JHK about his new book, Neurotic Beauty: An Outsider Looks at Japan, and a lot of other topics around the crisis of Modernity. Berman’s books include the trilogy: The Twilight of American Culture, Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire, and Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline.

Direct download: KunstlerCast_263.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 5:54pm EDT