Most of the attention to President Barack Obama's press conference Thursday about the Gulf of Mexico focused on the government's role and responsibility, the frustration of Gulf residents and the decision to halt or cancel new offshore drilling and deep-water operations in the Gulf.

In Alaska, the most immediate effect was the decision to delay Shell's plans to drill in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas at least until 2011.

But the president also talked about the Gulf spill being a wake-up call for the nation to reinforce efforts toward energy efficiency and increased use of alternative, renewable energy.

The question is, will we answer the call, and how?

No rational Alaskan or American argues against greater energy efficiency -- homes and businesses easier and cheaper to heat, fuel-efficient vehicles, retrofitting to cut energy use. In Southcentral Alaska, we've had warnings and even an Anchorage drill on how to deal with potential natural gas shortages during peak winter demand.

Increased use of renewable, clean energy sources -- wind, hydro, geothermal, tidal, solar -- is a work in progress that often seems frustratingly slow. We have good examples of wind, water and even solar power in Alaska and the rest of the United States. But we haven't yet had that lightning strike, that breakthrough that changes the equation to the point where we can see the end of our primary reliance on fossil fuels.

In 1977 President Jimmy Carter called the energy crisis the "moral equivalent of war." That's the same year oil began flowing through the trans-Alaska pipeline from the North Slope to Valdez. If asked then, chances are most of us would have said the nation's energy picture would have changed more by 2010 than it has.

In those 33 years, it has changed some. Clean renewables are an increasing a part of the picture, but our fundamental reliance on oil has not changed.

By 2043, will that fundamental reliance still be the case? The president said Thursday we have to begin a serious transition to a renewable energy economy, that the United States must lead in that effort. That's the right policy, and should fit Alaska to a T, because the transition period of decades includes more domestic production of oil and gas while we convert more of our energy consumption to elements that we don't have to burn. In Alaska we have both fossil fuels and potential renewable energy sources in abundance.

The wisdom of this approach lies in several factors. The road to energy independence and increased national security lies through renewable sources. And -- when we do things right -- the United States has among the highest safety and environmental standards for oil and gas production on the planet. Alaska, especially since the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989, has been at the forefront of setting those standards.

The president has called for a comprehensive national energy policy to get serious about that transition. That will be a tall order in an election year. We've had wake-up calls before in the last 33 years, but it's about time we picked up and stayed on the line.