Like this:

Steven Chu, the US Secretary of Energy, laughs a lot.  I noticed today while covering his talk that he cracks up– quite often–at his own jokes. That’s okay, Steven. I do it, too.

Maybe Chu’s comedic nature stood out to me more because of his very serious list of credentials: co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, former director of the DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, a professor of Physics and Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California.

Surprisingly, I was able to understand much of his talk today. When I heard he was coming, I read up on recent news in local and global energy issues. I even formed some questions for Chu. Too bad he answered most of them in his speech.

His main message? We’re in a new “industrial revolution,” but this time the industry is renewable, clean energy. Not coal. Oh, and we need to start lowering CO2 emissions immediately if we want our grandkids to see New Orleans. That’s right—if we don’t drastically change energy consumption in the next few years, the Greenland ice cap will continue to melt at an accelerated pace. Once it melts, the global sea level will rise by several feet, and many US cities, including New Orleans, will be submerged.

After Chu’s speech, I attended a media roundtable where he attempted to answer a slew of accented questions. There were only about 10 members of the press there—so it felt like a privilege of sorts. Some members of the press asked their questions in Arabic, others in broken English. I asked him about his meeting earlier that day with the director of the Qatar Science and Technology Park.

He spoke a lot about “diversifying wealth” ( not just relying on oil money to survive) and building strong intellectual capital.

I left the roundtable feeling pretty good about myself as a journalist. I sometimes attend these events and feel like an impostor, like someone will discover that I’m still just a student—not a real member of  the media yet.

As soon as I walked out of the room, I realized that I had no idea where I was in the Carnegie Mellon building. I followed Chu’s entourage, assuming they were headed out. They all filed into another hall. One of Chu’s men stopped me.

“Can I…help you?” he asked.

“Uhhh,” I stammered, “How do I get…out of here?”

“That way,” he pointed in the opposite direction.

As I pivoted, my shoe slipped and I tripped. Quite awkwardly. A member of the entourage even asked if I was okay. I couldn’t dignify it with a response.

I wonder if Chu was watching. Maybe he got a laugh out of it.

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