His dominant personality trait is niceness, a quality much on display when he emerges from his temporary office and wanders through the Sierra Club's Washington digs, searching for a recycling bin in which to deposit his emptied cans of orange soda. After much wandering, he discovers it wedged into a corner of a tiny kitchen, but access is blocked by a housekeeper doing the dishes. When he leans over to gently place the two cans on top of an enormous teetering mound, the whole pile comes crashing noisily down. She says not to worry, she'll clean it up, but Adam is beside himself, lunging again toward the pile. Finally, in frustration, he just hands them to her.
Life can be awkward at that age, but also exhilarating.
Adam makes no effort to hide his excitement over the heady agenda of this week. He waved his hand at his plate of ravioli and glasses of microbrewed beers. Having dinners like this, meeting new people, drinking beer. But he doesn't seem at all nervous. He has been speaking in public for quite some time-as a member of the Sierra Club's board of directors for the last two years and, before that, when he organized an army of 30,000 volunteers nationwide and created the Sierra Student Coalition.