A Climate Conversation Podcast Episode 11 with John Harpole
June 28, 2024
Hosts: Kim Monson & Dave O’Rourke
Guests: John Harpole and Walter E. Johnson, Geophysicist and Executive Producer of the documentary A Climate Conversation
A Climate Conversation Podcast
Welcome to our podcast in support of A Climate Conversation, a documentary that seeks to foster an honest dialogue on the subject of climate change—its causes, its impact, and a science-based cost/benefit analysis of its potential solutions.
We’ve had conversations with geologists, physicists, scientists, authors, and pundits, but until this podcast, no energy entrepreneurs or energy industry executives other than Walter Johnson—that's what makes this podcast so special. Others can have opinions, but our guest today has to make payroll in the energy industry.
John Harpole is the founder and owner of Mercator Energy, a Colorado-based natural gas broker. Mercator is the oldest and one of the largest brokers in the United States, trading about 1.5% of the US total production.
Mercator's services include procurement, transportation, balancing, and administrative services for natural gas producers and end-user customers. Mercator nominates and schedules natural gas supply and contracts for storage and transportation on interstate pipelines and utilities on behalf of its customers and third parties within the gathering systems. Mercator’s stated mission is to provide its customers with unbiased objectivity while stressing services.
John is an advisory board member of the Western Energy Alliance, the Leadership Program of the Rockies, the University of Colorado Global Energy Management Program, and Energy Outreach Colorado. John also served on Governor Bill Owens’s Ethics Committee for eight years. John is a husband and father of 3 and a board member of Benedictine College.
John is joined by Walt Johnson, brainchild and executive producer of A Climate Conversation. Another son of the West, Walt, is a geophysicist and fifth generation Coloradan and is keenly interested in bringing realism and the scientific method to the debate about climate. Walt is particularly interested in getting the scientific method to the discussion about human-caused climate change, its potential impact, and proposed solutions.
Food security and the role of natural gas in fertilizer production is a central theme today. This is a conversation the American people simply have to hear; they can't possibly understand the stakes on the table.
This is a critical topic in the larger context of cost/benefit. Our audience needs to understand the staggering costs of energy transition, which go far beyond the money involved. Potential human costs and externalities must be explored and explained. It's also true that the benefits of NetZero, if any, are poorly understood and obfuscated in this climate of alarmism.
We have a ‘hat trick’ of economic, national, and food security concerns. All are related to human flourishing, and all are under attack by the alarmists/Marxists/anti-USA cohorts. Each is worth exploring.
Other topics include:
The dangers associated with gas pipelines
Supply interruptions
Reliance on inherently unreliable alternative fuels,
The persistence of the anti-nuclear and anti-hydro alarmists, and
The cancel culture that threatens reasonable debate and investigation.
We hear realists derided as “deniers,” but that slur is a poor substitute for an argument. The science of climate is anything but settled, and models in use by the UN IPCC continue to prove deeply flawed. Before engaging in a multi-hundred trillion dollar energy transition, we should make sure the costs and benefits are much more well understood.
Comments