Reading the news, it is easy to be overwhelmed with dire environmental statistics and data. Yet these numbers can disguise the serious gaps that remain in our understanding of the environment and the impact humanity is having on the natural world. Although in some respects, more data are being produced now about the environment than ever before, there is a clear need to leverage existing data to produce meaningful statistics, and a greater focus should be placed on expanding our environmental data collection and production efforts using new methods and data sources. Fortunately, some noteworthy advances have been made recently, and today, on the 51st anniversary of Earth Day, we should commit to continuing this progress.