Friday marked the 46th anniversary of Earth Day, and our planet has come a long way since the inaugural holiday. But there have been struggles, too, notes The Kansas City Star. Earth Day began in 1970 in response to a 1969 massive oil spillnear Santa Barbara, Calif. Since then, we’ve seen the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Even so, things are getting better: By 2012, revenue from renewable energy resources amounted to almost $10 billion—and the industry is growing faster than experts predicted. Those resources include hydro, wind, geothermal, biomass and solar.
The price of renewables keeps going down, too. Meanwhile, Coal consumption in the US manufacturing sector was down 32 percent from 2002 to 2010.