KunstlerCast - Conversations: Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century

JHK chats with Douglas Kelbaugh of the University of Michigan School of Architecture about Dubai, where JHK recently made a brief sojourn. Doug Kelbaugh was dean of the UMich architecture faculty for ten years. After that, he worked for two years for the Dubai-based Limitless Corporation, which did large scale development projects all over the world, including the Emirate of Dubai itself. Doug lived there those two years and got a firm sense for the flavor of the place. He is also a founding member of the Congress for the New Urbanism.

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

Alice Friedemann insists she is not an academic, but publishes on a wide variety of contemporary scientific issues bearing on the fate of industrial civilization. She subscribes to a scenario that she calls the "fast crash." She worked for 25 years as a systems architect and engineer in the corporate world, or "Dilbert-Land" as she calls it, before dropping out to write full time. Her science and economic essays can be found at her website: Energyskeptic.com. Alice is also a cookbook writer and blogger at the website Wholegrainalice.com She lives in Berkeley, California.

JHK’s conversation with KMO of the C-Realm Podcast. KMO, who goes by that tag for his public persona, is one of the best interviewers in the podcast world. I’ve been listening to him for years, and have been on his podcast more than once, so it’s a treat to have him on mine. KMO is moving beyond the particulars of the collapse of industrial civilization to questions of what’s next under the circumstances.

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

JHK yaks with independent energy analyst and author Chris Nelder about the fine points of making an energy transition (or not) from the current economy into whatever the next one is. Chris is more sanguine about the alt energy future than JHK is, but we have a respectful and lively discussion of the issue from two sides. Chris Nelder is the author of "Profit From the Peak" and "Investing in Renewable Energy." He has worked as a software engineer and technical writer for Microsoft and ran a solar electric installation company before turning full time into the specialized field of energy investment.

JHK and Charles Hugh Smith, author and blogger at OfTwoMinds.com, yak about the Deep State, our favorite new word for what used be be known as the Establishment. We also touch on Charles's theory that the Deep State will be willing to "throw Wall Street under the bus" to save itself, if it felt threatened. This is JHK's return to the podcast after several months off finishing the third instalklment of the four-part World Made By Hand series. The title of WMBH-3 is A History of the Future. It will be published in September by the Atlantic Monthly Press.

#249 -- JHK chats with Steve Ludlum of the Economic-Undertow.com blog about the contemporary economy as a waste engine. We venture into dark and distant corners of the economic story, including population overshoot, the potential for social disorder, and the role of gold and silver as currencies.

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

It's harvest time. The frost is on the pumpkin. JHK visits the Farmers Market in Cambridge, NY, and chats with the farmers (and sundry other interesting people) about the ag scene in Washington County and the fate of small town America. By the way, the magnificent old Cambridge Hotel right next to the Farmer's Market is for sale, if any listeners want to run a place of lodging in a lovely corner of the country. Restaurant and bar included.

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

#247 -- Celebrating the 20thth anniversary of the publication of The Geography of Nowhere (and release for the first time of an E-book edition), JHK yaks with New Urbanist Andres Duany about the campaign to create more walkable communities and places worth caring about. Duany came to the USA as a child from Cuba in the late 1950s. He got his architecture degrees from Princeton and Yale. He formed the firm DPZ in Miami with his wife Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and together they produced the most iconic projects of the New Urbanism (Seaside, Florida, and many others) as well as leading a movement to reform the suburban fiasco and all its governing regulations.

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

JHK interviews Eric Zency, author of The Other Road to Serfdom and the Path to Sustainable Development. He is deeply knowledgable about the issues that the KunstlerCast is concerned with: the problems of an 'infinite growth' economy, the relationship between energy and money, and the fate of the planet. Eric teaches at the University of Vermont and Washington University in St. Louis.

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

JHK chats with tugboat fleet owner Rob Goldman about the revival and future of shipping on America's inland waterways. Rob's company, NYS Marine Highway runs tugboats that push cargo barges through the Erie Canal system and the Great Lakes, as well as along the Atlantic Coast. Rob graduated from Rensslaer Polytechnic as an Architect, got into the pleasure boat marina business, and eventually started his shipping company. It's not your great-great-grandfather's Erie Canal anymore.