From afar, our planet is tiny, blue and fragile, held in a fistful of darkness. Pockmarked by light emitted from surrounding stars, some of which have travelled billions of years to reach us. The silence of space eclipses the spinning globe, as a sun growls in the distance. The beauty of the earth’s blue and green face is veiled like a bride by white clouds. Its fragility quivers with a sense of surrounded silence, surrounded darkness and spiralling away from fellow planets. Utterly alone, it sinks like full-stop at the end of a muted sentence.

And its future is held within the palms of beings who could be bacteria: ourselves. Palms which have developed poor thumbs, bodies with over-sized adrenal glands and decaying eyesight. These are the creatures within this pale-blue beauty that will decide her future. Already fragile and temperate, it is us, her children, her keepers, her creatures who will decide her impact. In 6 billion years, that growling dog of a star will be let loose from its chain and devour the planet. Those same creatures, we with the poor digestive systems, will not be here. Those creature whose eyes will hold the exploding sun will be as different from us, as the first eukaryote from our evolutionary past. But our impact this century, in our lifetimes, can make our planet into an exclamation mark on the unending sentence, or the tapering off into ellipses…

The great philosopher AC Grayling poses a problem we all should contemplate. Suppose there is only one species in the whole universe which has advanced consciousness, to realise its presence, its future, its past. Suppose there is only one such advanced species: it would have to be us. This means, according to our view of happiness, we decide the happiness of this universe. We will decide how much happiness, fulfilment and liberty is accorded throughout the universe. The sentence is undeterred, the universe is indifferent and indifference is popularly known as the opposite of love. Even if the universe hated us – which, at times to our egotistical selves, seems to be the case – at least it means acknowledging us. Such is not the case. Therefore, we have the entire responsibility of the universe in our hands. How much happiness are we going to bring, how much of an exclamation mark can we make our existence into the quiet, cold universe? Are we to render our bride, our mother and our planet into a place of decay, madness and violence? Are we to view her as a necessary stepping-stone to “something better”, as many religious fanatics would have it?

Even if she is a stepping-stone, what a stone she is. A man himself is but paltry next to the unfathomable beauty on the earth upon which all men were born and all will die. King Henry the Fifth, in the Shakespeare play of the same name, says: “A good leg will fall, a straight back will stoop, a black beard will turn to white, a curled pate will grow bald, a fair face will wither, a full eye will wax hollow, but a good heart, Kate, is the sun … for it shines a bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly.” Even on this stepping-stone, which is to be our gravestone, nothing should detract us from loving our planet. Nothing should stop us from caring for it.

The maddening fact of life is that we are in it. The sobering fact of life is that we are on this great planet. Yet it takes a simple click of a button, or the turning of a page, to see her as no one before has. The simple fact is that we are part of the first group of humans to see the planet upon which we make our home. And what a home it is. If ever we feel ourselves consumed with rage, anger or absolute love or passion, we must simply remember: Spinning, slowly, calmly, held in a fist of darkness, surrounded by blinking eyes of stars, standing before a growling star, is a pale-blue dot we call home, veiled in white and awaiting the final placement by the actions of tiny creatures on its surface.