#31: A World in Crisis (and what to do about it) – with Jared Diamond

What can we learn from the tribes in the rainforest of New
Guinea? What are the greatest dangers facing humanity and the
earth today, and how can they be overcome? These are some of the
many questions we address in this conversation with a leading
scientist that has been voted one of the world's top ten
intellectuals by various British and American magazines and who
researches and writes on just about everything that makes up
human existence – think "universal genius": Jared Diamond.


He studied physiology at Harvard and Cambridge and became a
leading expert on the gallbladder. He is also an ornithologist,
anthropologist, sociologist, evolutionary biologist, ecologist,
and environmental historian with expertise in archaeology,
genetics, and human disease epidemiology. He is also a professor
of geography in Los Angeles.


And then he is also one of the most successful authors of popular
science nonfiction. His works have been translated into some
forty languages, and for the world bestseller "Guns, Germs, and
Steel. The Fates of Human Societies" he was awarded the Pulitzer
Prize in 1998. His other books include "Collapse. How Societies
Choose to Fail or Succeed", "The World until Yesterday" and his
most recent work "Upheaval – How Nations Cope with Crisis and
Change".


For all that, Jared Diamond is not only a master of lab work and
literature research, but he is and has been on the road himself
all over the world (over thirty times in New Guinea alone), he is
fluent in over a dozen languages ... So: more than enough
material for a wide-ranging conversation about a unique
scientific career – and about the world we live in.


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