Two holidays fall on April 22 this year – Easter and Earth Day. While 2.2 billion Christians joyfully celebrate the resurrection of Christ, an estimated billion people will mark Earth Day in what has become the most widely celebrated secular holiday in the world.
Earth Day began in 1970 as a counter-cultural, advocacy-oriented day focussed on environmental protection in the United States. But despite its activist origins, Earth Day – in Canada, at least – has seemed more attuned to platitudes and park clean-ups than serious environmental protection.