For reasons that are still unclear, I got an email from one of the administrators of our school. The email was a forwarded newsletter from the American Conservative Union encouraging me to contact the Minerals Management Services and tell them to lift some moratoria on offshore drilling.

Needless to say, I'm not down with offshore drilling.

I followed the link to contact the MMS and rewrote the letter. The subject of the email is now "Offshore drilling is not the answer." Short but sweet.

Dear Ms. Orr:

Are you considering lifting moratoria on offshore drilling? Please, turn
back now. Offshore drilling is NOT the answer to our current energy crisis.

The answer is instead to invest in renewable energy sources and the
technologies we need to get that energy out to the American public. We
need science-based solutions, like those outlined in the 1Sky platform
(1sky.org) to the climate crisis at hand. Continuing to use the old, dirty
energy sources that got us into this mess in the first place is simply
continuing down a path to destruction. Please, help the MMS become a
climate champion and a leader in sustainable initiatives by continuing to
block offshore drilling.

Sincerely,
Joanna Gibson

And I sent it off. I also subscribed to the American Conservative Union's action alerts so I can be kept abreast of other issues I strongly object to. And then this wonderful thing showed up in my inbox:



It's not often that I get an email with the subject "Thank you for your help in advancing the conservative movement." I'm going to treasure that one forever.