I wouldn't be so sure. Natural gas combustion produces 2/3 the CO2 of coal, and has many fewer other pollutants as well, but fracking uses a lot of energy (often coal generated electricity) to put fluids under pressure and pump it into rock formations so the energy return isn't very good. Fracking also requires lots of water and causes much pollution both at the surface and in ground water.
To your first point, that's a matter of energy economics. As with any commodity, if the economics favor it's extraction, it will be done. You seriously think that the energy required to install and frack a horizontal well is more than the energy needed for mountain top removal?
To your second point, fracking in the northeast is occurring in a water rich part of the world. We can spare a little.
To your third: Pollution with what? The frack fluids are contained, treated, and shipped offsite. In New York, this procedure will be the most heavily regulated in the country, if not the world. So the surface water issue, if it is one, will be isolated, the same way TCE, PCE, PCBs, Chromium VI, BTEX, Fuel Oil are. As far as groundwater contamination is concerned, I have yet to hear an argument from anyone except hysterical hippies that their drinking water is going to be contaminated. The shale formations where gas is being extracted have extremely low primary and secondary porosities (hence the need for fracking) and no groundwater content (hence the ability to extract natural gas and not a bunch of water). The stories of private well contamination are anecdotal at best, are usually related to historical wells dating to the early 20th century, and are always the result of an improperly installed casing seal rather than direct contamination of a drinking water aquifer by an underlying natural gas formation.
You sure come down hard on other people for talking out there asses, but your last post was nothing more than intellectual flatulence.
Hey, look at the hysterical hippies [sic] at Scientific American this month:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-truth-about-fracking