(Dr. Robert Cox, a professor of communication studies and ecology curriculum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is a former president of the Sierra Club.)

Twenty years ago, Gov. Jim Martin and our coastal communities stopped Mobil Oil and Chevron from drilling in sensitive waters off our coast. The high cost to fishing and tourism was unacceptable.

Now the high cost of gas is driving some to look again at offshore drilling. But despite the pain from gas prices, we need to keep clear heads about the facts and what's best for our future.

First, according to published reports, oil companies can't responsibly explore the oil leases they already hold any faster. Instead, they're using their record profits to buy back stock and reward their shareholders.

Even if they found new oil tomorrow, it would be 2030 before the resulting gas hit the pump. And global markets would still set prices. That's not the answer to our pain.

One answer, with real jobs, is wind energy on the Outer Continental Shelf. New technologies allow floating wind farms to be built, overcoming old technical difficulties. Building wind farms would create clean jobs with good wages for welders, steelworkers and others.

North Carolina is already generating clean energy and clean jobs. Davidson County will be home to the nation's largest solar field. N.C. State researchers are working on plug-in hybrid cars.

In the meantime, the facts about North Carolina's coast haven't changed. No one thinks there are significant oil deposits there. Natural gas is more likely, but new supplies are still years away. And the hurricane-prone waters make drilling a perilous, costly proposition.

Our tourism industry supports a multibillion-dollar economy. Fishing is struggling to survive. Both tourism and fishing depend on a healthy environment, difficult to achieve with an industrialized coastline and toxic waste generated by oil drilling.

Clean energy generates good jobs and protects our coast. That's where we should be looking for relief.

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