Dr. Jared Diamond, author of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, will be the keynote speaker at the Alabama Environmental Education Consortium (ALEEC) Earth Day conference at Samford University Saturday, April 19.

The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) professor will speak on lessons from the environmental collapse of societies. He wrote about this in his 2005 book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. 

A prolific writer who speaks 12 languages, Diamond is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards for his books and scholarship. He has written on fields as diverse as molecular biology, linguistics, physiology, genetics, archeology and history.

The ALEEC conference-hosted by the Vulcan Materials Center for Environmental Stewardship and Education-is free and open to the public, beginning at 9 a.m. in Samford's Wright Center. Diamond will sign copies of his books at the close of the conference, as will two other authors also on the program.

Dr. Howard Frumkin, director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will speak on the topic of his book, Climate Change and Human Health. Frumkin is an internist, environmental and occupational medicine specialist and epidemiologist.

Author Mike Tidwell will discuss his latest book, The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities. He is founder and director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. His 2003 book, Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast, predicted in detail the Katrina hurricane disaster.