On a recent trip north, for example, Green grounded his wheels in favor of a train ride from Wilmington to Baltimore, Md. But even when he drives, Green said, he’s saving what he can: His Volkswagen Beetle gets 28 miles per gallon on the highway.

Even so, a two-hour trip from his home in Wrightsville Beach to Selma, where he stayed overnight last Thursday, cost him nearly $20, or about 1.5-times what the same trek would have cost one year ago. The high cost of gas has left even the greenest of environmentalists praying for relief at the pump.

“We’ve got to do something to turn our energy crisis around,” Green said while dining at The Diner on Market Street. “I think we need to start looking for oil now from anywhere we can find it.”

Last week, President Bush lifted the presidential ban on offshore drilling put in place by his father in 1990. The move was mostly symbolic; a 1981 congressional ban on offshore drilling remains in place. Political observers say it’s unlikely a Democrat-controlled Congress will lift the ban.

Folks like Green can understand Democrats’ hesitance to make such a move. Environmentalists have suggested that offshore drilling would destroy wildlife habitats along North Carolina’s coastline or that it could lead to a disaster like the infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill in the 1990s.

That was chief among the concerns William Turlington of Clayton expressed while dining with his wife outside Gandolfo’s Deli. “I’m concerned about the impact drilling could have here or anywhere in the U.S.,” he said. “We don’t need a repeat of the Exxon incident.”

Green said he would prefer that the government pursue other forms of energy like solar and wind power. And if drilling must take place, Green said, he’d prefer it be done in the mostly uninhabited Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.

“The way I figure, about one in every 100 people in the lower 48 states will ever go to Alaska,” he said. “And maybe about one in 1,000 will ever travel to that part of the state.

“I know many people say that drilling would destroy habitats for moose and other animals there, and I love animals too, but the way I see it now is that we all have to drive every day, and the price of gas is really hurting us. We have to have oil, at least for now, and I don’t like the fact that we have to depend on Muslim countries to get it.”

Jim Johnson of McGee’s Crossroads said he thought too much had been made of the possible environmental impact of offshore drilling. Supporters have cited studies in recent weeks showing that offshore platforms are much safer than the oil tankers now being used to transport oil.

“There has been drilling in the ocean before, and it has had very little impact on the environment,” Johnson said. “It can be done safely.”

While Johnson did not expect offshore drilling to have an immediate impact on soaring gas prices, he said it could have a positive impact on North Carolina’s economy. He said new jobs could be created in the shipping industry.

Johnson also said he expected that offshore drilling along the North Carolina coast might lead to the building of a new oil pipeline and perhaps new oil refineries. If that happened, he said, the Eastern Seaboard would be protected against the kind of gas crisis unleashed by Hurricane Katrina in 2006.

“With the storm in the Gulf, since there were only two supply lines, when those lines shut down, the supply to the whole East Coast shut down,” Johnson said. “We can’t afford for that to happen again.”

Turlington doesn’t buy those arguments. He said any impact on North Carolina’s economy would likely be minimal, because, in his opinion, the oil companies would ultimately gain the most from offshore drilling.

As for the impact on gas prices, Turlington said oil from offshore sources might increase supply but would do little to offset demand. He said it would take an increase in worldwide production to have a significant effect on both demand for oil and the price of gasoline.

“It’s my understanding that the price is driven more by the world market,” he said. “It’s not necessarily all about the demand here in the United States.”