I have spent months trying to get politicians, conservation groups and industry to begin active carbon sequestration programs. After many weeks of pestering I was finally able to arrange a meeting with one of the gurus of a prominent environmental organization. The only time he could fit me in was 6 a.m. The meeting was held at a coffee shop across the parking lot from his office. It lasted a little over an hour and a half.

I had been drinking coffee since about 4:00 AM so I really didn't need any more. Anyway, I was just a little manic. Because I knew that this was probably my only shot with the guru, I tried to shove into the meeting as much information and documentation as I possibly could. I could tell that he wasn't getting it. He gaped back at me with an expression as blank and unrewarding as an empty refrigerator. I could sense him edging toward the end of his booth and I quickened my pace almost but not quite raving. As I gasped for breath and took a quick gulp of cold coffee, he seized the opportunity provided by the pause in the deluge of verbiage and fled the building - a startled deer bounding through the parking lot - with me stumbling after him waving scientific papers above his head like the sword of Damocles and shouting volumes of obscenity laced statistics.

When he reached the safety of his building he slammed the door shut behind him and locked it securely, a barrier I am sure he did not need to reinforce with the furniture I could hear him dragging across the floor toward the entrance. I stood there for a long moment before fleeing the scene myself. As I glanced back over my shoulder, I thought I saw him peeking from behind the curtains of his office, the would-be- victim lucky to have escaped the terror at his threshold, a timid pitiful creature cowering in the gloom.
On the whole a most successful presentation – I think.

O'HOZHO