Here’s Jared Diamond giving an exclusive preview of his new book, The World Until Yesterday.

“As Jared Diamond and others have shown us, this is how civilizations commit suicide: by slamming their foot on the accelerator at the exact moment when they should be putting their foot on the brakes.” In this TED Talk, Naomi Klein speaks about our devastating efforts to extract “the dirtiest, highest [carbon]-emitting stuff imaginable” from our planet—all to keep up with our insatiable demand for energy.

Dr. Jared Diamond, visiting The Lavin Agency speakers bureau, talks about what we can learn from tribal societies. For one thing, members of tribal societies are multilingual—which, it turns out, is the best known defense for the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Jared Diamond, the author of Guns, Germs and Steel and an upcoming book on tribal societies, stopped by Lavin’s Toronto offices today. Last night, he delivered a speech at the Royal Ontario Museum to a capacity crowd of well over a thousand people. Sporting a stylish red blazer, the Pulitzer Prize-winner and “celebrity” scientist talked to us about what we can learn from tribal societies and discussed the role of geography in determining human rights. Though he’s a serious academic, Dr. Diamond was delightful and hilarious in person. At one point, he stopped an anecdote on tribal education to riff on lackadaisical teenagers and California stereotypes. He’s articulate, he’s funny, he’s personable, and he can call upon thousands of years of history at a second’s notice. If only all scientists were this engaging! 

(Above, Dr. Jared Diamond with David Lavin, president of The Lavin Agency)