Earth Day: April 22, 2015

April 22, 2015, marks the 45th anniversary of Earth Day ― a day intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’snatural environment. The day came from reaction to a massive oil spill in waters near Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1969. In honor of Earth Day ― and Earth Week (April 16-22) ― this edition of Profile America Facts for Features includes examples of Census Bureau statistics pertaining to energy and the environment. Renewable Energy $9.8 billion Revenues in 2012 for electric power generation industries that use renewable energy resources, such as hydro, wind, geothermal, biomass, solar and other electric power generation. This figure is up 49.0 percent from $6.6 billion in 2007. 697 The number of wind, geothermal, biomass, solar and other electric power generation business establishments in 2012, up from 312 in 2007. 5,456 The number of employees in wind electric power generation, the most among the industries using renewable energy in 2012. $5 billion Revenues for the wind electric power generation industry in 2012, the highest among the industries using renewable energy resources. Hydroelectric power generation followed with revenues of $2.4 billion. Geothermal electric power generation had revenues of just under $1 billion ($995.4 million), followed by biomass electric power generation, with $934.6 million in revenues, solar electric power generation, with $472.4 million, and other electric power generation, with $59.0 million. Source: 2012 Economic Census <http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2014/cb14-204.html> Heating and Cooling the Home

How Many Species Are There on Earth?

The diversity of life is one of the most striking aspects of our planet; hence knowing how many species inhabit Earth is among the most fundamental questions in science. Yet the answer to this question remains enigmatic, as efforts to sample the world's biodiversity to date have been limited and thus have precluded direct quantification of global species richness, and because indirect estimates rely on assumptions that have proven highly controversial. ... In spite of 250 years of taxonomic classification and over 1.2 million species already catalogued in a central database, our results suggest that some 86% of existing species on Earth and 91% of species in the ocean still await description.

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