No one walks in LA, but a few environmental trendsetters are pedaling around on a moto-hybrid. The assistance of a small Honda utility engine on steep hills is not to be sneezed at as it meets the stringent California Air Resource Board’s (CARB) tier 3 emissions regulations for small engines whilst getting an unprecedented 150 to 180 mpg. The concept of putting a small engine to a slightly modified bicycle frame is not new, but the remarkable concept behind Derringer Cycles is you’re making an eco-statement in a retro-styling manner. While cruising down Santa Monica Boulevard with a color matching helmet, goggles, and saddle bags, definitely adds to the hipster-environmental mantra. Let’s face it, retro is the new green wave sweeping the globe. If you take ecological steps toward sustainability in a fun and practical manner, then a hand-made Derringer Cycle might be just what the green genie will order you. For the past two years president, owner and wunderkind Adrian Van Anz, 29, has made his dream a reality at a small store front office in Santa Monica. His small workshop cranks out the two-wheeler marvel customized to the buyer’s choice, which includes colors, accessories like two retro saddle bags and lights, to a larger engine upgrade to which will propel the miserly cycle to 50 mph from a respectable 35mph, but your mileage will take a small hit. The gangster name sake was given to the small motor company as a “bad boy” image to the fashionable elegant velocipede. Next time gas prices spike to last summer levels, consider an alternative method of getting around in a pistol-packin’ sixty pound, 1.5 gallon tank beauty.

Twister, wall cloud, cyclone, call it what you want, on May 4th 2007 one of the highest recorded winds ever produced from a tornado struck the small town of Greensburg, Kansas. The storm was nearly off the scale, a class EF-5 tornado, called by the National Severe Storms Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. The hurricane like winds well over 210 mph, leveled 95% of the town structures and took the lives of eleven people. That was about two years ago, now the town is living up to its name. The rebirth of the farming community has taken a green approach of sustainability with a renewable sense of energy production and conservation. From platinum LEED’s , (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), certified public buildings, a futuristic Arts Center with solar panels, wind turbines and a green glass facade to city hybrid fleet vehicles, Greensburg is setting an example of green collar mindfulness Al Gore would be jealous of. A steady parade of journalists, The Discovery Channel, bloggers of all shapes and forms and also your environmentally concerned tourists flood Greensburg to see what the earth friendly buzz is about. The call for an unconventional energy path is getting louder with every rebuilt home using bamboo flooring to solar panels. The newly under-construction city hall is making use of sustainable technologies in tandem with the application of recycled materials for rebuilding the public recreation areas fallen victim to the killer tornado. We all need to give Greensburg two very high green thumbs-up for showing us all an alternative path to follow.

Last time I check my historical facts, the term Czar set fear in the hearts of the working classes and country folk of what was then the reign of Czar Nicholas II of Imperial Russia. Here we are today almost one hundred years from those despotic days and still using the infamous title of Czar. This time in a so-called modern capitalistic society where the democratically elected governing body is bailing out the Big Three auto companies with tax payers hard earned cash, but wait. Conditions are being placed for those rogue manufactures who several years ago fought against CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy), standards for passenger cars and light trucks. The electrification of Detroit, meaning the implementation of hybrid power trains to elevate miles per gallon is one of the main conditions set by the Obama government. With that said, development of state-of-the-art lithium ion battery packs to sustain a hybrid vehicle for over 30 miles without having to kick-in it’s fossil fuel burning engine and also to possibly build an electric car with that technology, similar to the all electric marvel the General Motors EV-1. Hopefully history won’t repeat itself and the angry, jobless, Bolshevik hordes won’t take down the reigning Czar and royal family.