Shale oil has boosted U.S. GDP, lowered world oil prices, and added a potent new surge capacity to U.S. oil output that lessens the risk of a global oil supply disruption. These gains dwarf the effects of shale oil on climate change or on the communities where drilling takes place. But shale oil supporters have yet to fully detach the many citizens concerned about drilling’s real, although modest, local costs from the centrally planned campaigns of climate change zealots whose demands flout all reasoned balancing of costs and benefits.
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Richard Nixon gives his well-known two-armed victory salute during a campaign stop in El Paso. (Getty Images)