“When we look down at the earth from space, we see this amazing, indescribably beautiful planet. It looks like a living, breathing organism. But it also, at the same time, looks extremely fragile … Anybody else who’s ever gone to space says the same thing because it really is striking and it’s really sobering to see this paper-thin layer and to realize that that little paper-thin layer is all that protects every living thing on Earth from death, basically. From the harshness of space.”

It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread.

“It’s constantly changing, the colours, the shadows, the terrain, everything is changing and all this motion, colours and light really gives you the sense that we live on a living, breathing organism…When you’re up there for months at a time you can actually see the ice breaking up in the harbour, you can see this line that represents the changing leaf colours slowly march from south to north, to north to south, And those long term seasonal changes, when you put them together with the routine day to day changes, again give you this impression that we all live on a living, breathing organism, this living thing that we call Earth, a living biosphere”

“…it can prompt an instant reevaluation of our shared harmony and a shift in focus to all the wonderful things we have in common instead of what makes us different. It reinforced tenfold my own view on the power of our beautiful, mysterious collective human entanglement, and eventually, it returned a feeling of hope to my heart. In this insignificance we share, we have one gift that other species perhaps do not: we are aware — not only of our insignificance, but the grandeur around us that makes us insignificant. That allows us perhaps a chance to rededicate ourselves to our planet, to each other, to life and love all around us. If we seize that chance.”

“It gives me comfort to know Earth is our home, how it takes care of us and I recognize that, and I’ve spent a lot of time over the years talking to people and trying to get them to understand how important it is that we take an attitude toward our Earth as a more reverent attitude and do more to take care of it”

“The actual experience exceeds all expectations and is something that’s hard to put to words… It sort of reduces things to a size that you think everything is manageable…. All these things that may seem big and impossible … We can do this. Peace on Earth – No problem. It gives people that type of energy … that type of power, and I have experienced that.”