Is Learning About Clean Energy Dangerous?

It’s the birthday of the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, whose murder in 1940 I believe to be one of the most significant events in recent human history. Where Stalin was a vicious thug, Trotsky was an intellectual. Who knows what would have happened had the budding Communist Party been run with a kind of enlightenment, vs. the cruel and systematic oppression that eventually brought its demise?

Trotsky said, “Learning carries within itself certain dangers,” which, coincidentally, is a remark I echo near the end of my current book:

So should I “put a period” on this, walk away, and go enjoy the days I have left on this planet as it chokes, starves, and bombs itself to death? Even if I found that tempting, it’s not an option, since, now that I know the truth, I’ve fallen into the grasp of Emerson’s great adage: “You can have truth or repose, but you cannot have both.”