Thanks for the reply.  Agreed, it is a complex issue, and I suppose it has to be worked out in the grand "marketplace" of power politics and economics.

For the record, I said "unmitigatable", not "unmitigated" -- the LNG proponents will surely propose "mitigations" to their schemes.

Also, I am not "opposed" to LNG-- after all, like nuclear power, warfare, and even cancer, it exsists, so it is logically incoherent and silly to oppose a fact.  I am opposed to some of the schemes to use that substance -- and the one I know best about is here in the Columbia River.

Clearly, this is not the place to provide all the documentation that supporting my position would require.  My point in the initial comment was only that neither the industry nor the Government are having the dialog necessary to weigh the cost-benefit analysis you have suggested in your reply to me, and the only defense in that situation is to adopt the "sound bite" style of communication that passes for American political and social discourse -- hence NIMBY.  I don't like it, I would prefer a more reasoned debate.  But I am not getting it.  And I am sure it is because the LNG interests would be on the losing side of a truly free debate.  At least here on the North Oregon coast.

So what are the alternatives?  Well, lots of them.  And that is why I read the OilDrum; it is the best source of what appears to be real data either on the Internet or in paper publications.