Yesterday morning Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic Airway pulled up to the IAC Building in a hydrogen fuel-cell-powered Chevy Equinox SUV. There he was joined by executives from GM and Rolls Royce to announce a smorgasbord of environmental initiatives. A clear theme was hard to distinguish, other than the color green.

Here’s an odd PR move making the blog rounds today: Bob Lutz, the General Motors Vice Chairman who’s driving the charge to build the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid, was recently quoted in D Magazine calling global warming a “crock of s**t.”

Talk about irony. I'm driving one of the world's most environmentally responsible cars into Las Vegas, the world capital of excess.

My ride is the HydroGen1, General Motors' zero-emission fuel-cell-powered development vehicle, and I'm taking it over for the last leg of a 230-mile endurance run dubbed Challenge Bibendum by organizer Michelin. Participating are a host of alternative-fuel vehicles, including nine fuel cell cars.