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.
![Border patrol officers pull barbed wires as irregular immigrants coming from Central and South America who have gathered in the town of Ciudad Juarez on the Mexican border continue to wait at the US border on March 20, 2024, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. (Photo by Christian Torres/Anadolu via Getty Images)](/sites/default/files/styles/16_9_sm/public/2025-01/GettyImages-2092456479.jpg?h=b0d169d7&itok=24WdaEF5)
Caption
Border patrol officers pull barbed wires as immigrants wait at the United States border on March 20, 2024, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. (Christian Torres/Anadolu via Getty Images)