Eco-tourism may draw some visitors to the North Bay, but some forward-looking groups are betting that even more travelers can be enticed through the broader approach called Geo-tourism.

 Anyone wanting a broader understanding of Geotourism in general or the North Coast initiative specifically can find a wealth of background information here.

You can click here to access the online nomination form for places and other resources to be included in the region's geotourism map. Multiple nominations are encouraged.

Coastwalk is among the local and regional groups who are submitting their activities  to be included in the interactive geotourism map.  Click here to see what they've got planned  in the coming months, including the annual trek along the Mendocino County "lost coast" seen below.

Oil companies are consolidating and reaping record profits. And that's not a good thing, for democracy or for planet earth.

Antonia Juhasz' previous book was The Bu$h Agneda:  Invading the World, One Economy at a Time.

It's not the cost of oil at the derrick that has been driving up the price of gasoline at the pump, says researcher, analyst and writer Antonia Juhasz. A far more influential factor is the speculative trading of oil price futures, which happens outside the view or regulatory control of this or any other government.

While most big oil companies have recently begun to portray themselves as newly sensitive to the environment and open to alternative energy, Juhasz isn't buying it.

They call it "the pedagogy of place"--  using the natural environment as a learning tool for kids. And it may be the best available antidote to passive, media-dominated childhoods that can result in obesity, diabetes, and other health problems.

Rocky Rohwedder (left),  a professor of Enviromental Studies and Planning at SSU, believes that kids in today's industrialized societies  are not spending enough time outdoors  and are missing out on what nature has to teach them.

The term "nature deficit disorder " was coined and popularized by writer by Richard Louv in his 2005 book Last Child in the Woods. You can hear him interviewed about it on NPR's Morning Edition here.

Louv is also the co-founder and chairman of the Children & Nature Network, which was created to encourage and support the people and organizations working to reconnect children with nature.

Creative financing directly from Sonoma County may soon help local home and business owners add solar and other energy-efficiency improvements to their properties.

County Supervisors have scheduled their public hearing on the proposal for 9:30 am on Tuesday March 24.

 The vast majority of the projects expected to get funding through the Sonoma County Energy Independence Program will be retrofits of existing structures. The program will also fund installation of tankless water heaters, such as the one described below.