I had no idea, actually, but the Original Cyberpunk reminds us that yet another would-be holy day is upon us:
My gosh, it’s Earth Day again. I remember the first Earth Day in 1970, mostly because it was a good excuse to cut school and go run around outside. One of my more activist-oriented friends tried to organize a group to go pick up trash along the river, but that business was too filthy and too much like work for the majority of the Earth Day cultists, who mostly wanted to be seen publicly Caring About The Earth and demanding that The Government Should Do Something. Even today, that particular bit of the memory collage makes me think of Matthew 6.1: “Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them…”
Silly enviromentalists! Don’t they know that only Hallmark and Colored/Negro/black/Afro-/African-American/Black people are allowed to invent holidays in America?
Now that I’ve been informed, I plan to honor Gaia by holding a memorial service for the tree that I murdered two summers ago. Oh, the remorseful tears that will flow!