All right. We wanted to record a conversation about Europe, the States and environmental problems so we figured a train station would be a good place to record the third podcast.

Alexanderplatz is the center of the former East Berlin and today is one of the main shopping and travel areas. That equals sweet background noise.

Alexanderplatz is pretty damn ugly these days, but then again much of Berlin is pretty ugly. Scabs are ugly and Berlin's kind of scabby right now. I'm telling you,it's the city of the future.

The Funk Doc and the JB's monorail

And the future was the main topic of conversation and many questions in this podcast.

For example, how's my dad going to get bread to his suburban American home when the oil runs out? Or will the grocery store even be open at that point? And how are people in Las Vegas going to survive after oil when all their food is brought in to them using fossil fuels?

Lots of questions that we should be asking ourselves...especially if you don't live within walking distance to anything but a tennis court. Germans (and Europeans generally) are getting ready for the disaster but what are Americans doing?

Check out The Long Emergency by James Howard for more information on when the oil's going to run out, how dependent we are on the stuff, and what's going to happen when it gets too scarce or too expensive to distribute.

View from atop the S-bahn platform towards Alexanderplatz

Musically we went back in time a bit. Two tracks by the immortal JB's, one track by the Skatalites and an older Beck tune.

Hope you liked the show, hope we didn't depress you too much and send us an email or two if you got something to say...