Ed. note: Geologist and petroleum engineer Julián Salazar Velásquez, with nearly a half-century in the Mexican and Venezuelan oil industries, is a leading educator and proponent of free market energy. In addition to numerous articles, his book Gerencia Integrada de Campos de Hidrocarburos (2020) is a primer on the oil industry value chain. His four-part summary (see Part I, Part II, and Part III) ends today.

“I have two options: to remain silent in the last years of my life and witness the destruction of the world economy, as just happened in Venezuela. Or alert many to the threat to blessed living to avoid a repeat of destruction. In clear conscience, I opt for the second!”

The role that fossil fuels have played in the progress of humanity in four revolutions is undeniable:

• Mechanization with steam engines powered by coal;
• Massification of electricity, generated first by coal and later by falling water, oil, and natural gas
• Computing
• Digitization and artificial intelligence

The mineral energy story can incorporate another of the highly important indicators in the quality of life, such as agricultural and livestock development and food production.…

Ed. Note: In mid-2019, MasterResource published a post on a notable political capitalist in the history of the energy industry, the late James E. Rogers, longtime CEO of Duke Energy. With that company’s rolling blackouts (“load shedding”) over Christmas weekend for a half-million customers “for the first time in the utility’s history“, it is worth remembering the damage done to free markets and electric reliability by the political track chosen by one executive. (The post is reproduced below with minor edits.)

At 41 [in 1988], [James Rogers] was named CEO of PSI Energy Inc., a small, financially troubled Indiana utility. Breaking ranks with others in the electric-power industry, he supported legislation putting caps on sulfur-dioxide emissions. “Some of my guys thought I was drinking the environmental Kool-Aid,” he said later.

Ed. Note: With the failing climate narrative, it’s time to play offense in energy/environmental debates. Chris Wright of Denver-based Liberty Energy Inc., previously profiled at MasterResource, drawing upon his company’s 99-page 2022 sustainability report, “Bettering Human Lives,” offers a compelling argument. [1]

“Let’s all check our desires to be fashionable or hip when we talk about energy. Energy is so critical to human well-being that we must speak honestly, candidly, and frequently to combat the increasingly damaging plague of energy ignorance that has taken over our country and much of the western world.”

Chris Wright is a member of the New School of moral-high-ground fossil-fuel executives. So is Adam Anderson, CEO of Innovex Downhole Solutions, who exposed North Face/VF Corporation’s anti-petroleum stance. Another notable is Vivek Ramaswamy, Executive Chairman, Strive Asset Management, who exhorts more oil and gas production from the companies he invests in “to both create significant shareholder value and contribute to human flourishing.”…

“Climate deniers are often simply awful people.”

Michael Mann, September 15, 2019

An army of climate denier bots & trolls have been released to deflect attention from the unprecedented climate change-fueled extreme weather we’re witnessing. If you encounter, report first. Then block. Don’t engage!

Michael Mann, July 19, 2022

Not people. Mostly bots.  July 19

In response to a Sierra Club study, “Climate Deniers Are More Likely to Be Racist. Why?” Michael Mann answered: “Because, in general, they’re pretty awful people. Racism, misogyny, climate denial often come bundled:   September 3, 2019.

Jonathan Watts, “Climatologist Michael E Mann: ‘Good people fall victim to doomism. I do too sometimes‘” The Guardian, February 27, 2021.

The Victim

“For more than two decades I was in the crosshairs of climate change deniers, fossil fuel industry groups and those advocating for them – conservative politicians and media outlets.…