This is a tale of a brilliant scientist/inventor named Thomas Midgley Jr., who passed away in 1944.

Arguably due to one of his own inventions, but never mind that.

While in their obituary, The New York Times praised Midgley as being “one of the nation’s outstanding chemists,” said DeNuz (by way of the The New York Times), “today Midgley is best known for the terrible consequences of that chemistry…he managed to invent leaded gasoline and also develop the first commercial use of the chlorofluorocarbons that would create a hole in the ozone layer.

“Each of these innovations offered a brilliant solution to an urgent technological problem of the era: making automobiles more efficient, producing a safer refrigerant. But each turned out to have deadly secondary effects on a global scale. Indeed, there may be no other single person in history who did as much damage to human health and the planet, all with the best of intentions as an inventor.”

We’ve heard founders today talk about achieving a zero-carbon. For the record, human expel carbon dioxide with each and every breath and guess what can’t survive without it?

Nature. You should have learned that by junior high school, at the latest.

Trees et al convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. Simple circle of life. So, if your aim is a zero-carbon planet, sorry, but not convinced that you’re necessarily smarter than a fifth grader.

If there’s one thing that the Age of Social taught us is that we can fairly quickly connect a global world. But science is quite another thing. The systems on the planet are connected, too. Data might be the mot du jour for attracting investors, but do keep in mind that in science, for every action there is a reaction. Very important to consider not only long-term, but 360-degree effects rather than continue to do what many founders tend to do – and Midgley himself did: work in a silo. Example: off-shore wind farms are all well and good and green, according to the talking points, but as IowaClimate.org reported, Not Green: Offshore Wind ‘Industry’ Destroying Fishing Grounds, Birds & Marine Life.

Are EVs really a solution?  “Several studies have shown that when factoring in the production process and electricity generation needed to charge the batteries, E.V. conversion can be more damaging to the environment that gas vehicles, and here are more points you might want to consider in case you’re wondering  What’s behind the push for electric vehicles?

Bill Gates – and now unregulated startups – have been checkerboarding the skies with chemtrails to block out the sun in the name of climate control. Does anyone know the long-term effects of blocking out the sun and potentially poisoning the planet with the chemicals that are falling back to earth? And isn’t sunlight sort of a necessity for growing crops?

There was a margarine commercial way back in the late 70s that attempted to convince consumers that margarine was just as good as butter. If you’re approach to clean and green is holistic and with a solid consideration for potential long-term collateral damage, all well and good. Otherwise, as the commercial warned, it’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature. Onward and forward.