In light of the Cohen and Manafort verdicts and the overturning of Obama Clean Air policy of regulating power plant emissions, let’s listen to my 2005 conversation with JARED DIAMOND regarding his book COLLAPSE: HOW SOCIETIES CHOOSE TO FAIL OR SUCCEED. In his earlier Pulitzer-prize winning bestseller GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL, Diamond examined how and why Western civilizations developed the technologies and immunities that allowed them to dominate much of the world. In COLLAPSE, he asks: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates?