It always pays to look into who is paying the bills

Due to the public's concern for the environment, environmentalists are often used by business interests to block competition. I've seen it up close in regional debates about development, where the developed region finances environmentalists who block further development. Wealthy people use this strategy to protect home prices all the time.

Now this: Matt Damon’s Anti-Fracking Movie Financed by Oil-Rich Arab Nation

All of this suggests a direct financial interest on the UAE’s part in slowing the development of America’s natural gas industry. Pop culture can be a powerful means to sway public opinion. While Promised Land, like anti-fracking documentary Gasland, appears to inflate the dangers of hydraulic fracturing, it may have an impact on the public’s view of the practice.

Too often both sides in a debate accuse each other of being mercenaries, delivering the message their financiers want. Sometimes that happens, but more often, money simply finds its way to people making the argument. Where they make the argument though, what town happens to have a development shut down, may depend entirely on who was footing the bill.