The Drawbridge Effect, What's It's About and Why It Won't Win the Day in the End

I recently came across a reference to something UK commentator and climate critic James Delingpole said. It perfectly captures something I frequently write about in a much more clumsy fashion than Delingpole. It’s what he calls the Drawbridge Effect and it comes from an article of his on Breitbart from over 10 years ago. Here it is:

The drawbridge effect. You’ve made your money. Now the very last thing you want is for all those trashy middle-class people below you to have a fair shot at getting as rich as you are. That’s why you want to make energy more expensive by opposing Keystone XL; why you’re all for environmental land sequestration (because you already own your exclusive country property); and Agenda 21 – which will make all Americans poorer, but you not so much, because you’ve enough cash to cushion you from the higher taxes and regulation with which the greenies want to hamstring the economy.

That’s a pretty succinct statement of the NIMBY problem in land use regulations. Everyone wants to regulate the other fellow, of course, but the problem that happens with the gentrification of rural areas is that new folks always want to close the gates behind them, and they have the money to make sure it often happens. Their definition of sustainability is to keep others down and out.

I learned that earlier as a young, very naive environmentalist. Too much of environmentalism is about stopping anything and everything, especially things that are trashy middle-class in the minds of those who have moved in and taken over. It’s the same with oil and gas development. That's because oil and gas are of a profoundly middle-class culture. Those who oppose such development where I live are nearly always among the gentrifiers. They realize it will bring value and staying ability to those who would rather just go away, and there is not-so-subtle contempt for anything blue-collar, which is how they see the oil and gas industry.

Regardless, NIMBY types are seldom successful in the long-run. That because needs ultimately triumph over wants. And, the world needs energy, more energy than we can even imagine, as Big Tech is learning. They are reluctantly abandoning solar and wind to go nuclear and, soon, they’ll want more oil and gas, too. Mark my words! Carthage didn't keep out the Romans, Constantinople's gates didn't stop it from becoming Istanbul and no drawbridge will stop oil and gas development when necessary.

#Delingpole #Oil #Gas #DrawbridgeEffect #NIMBY