Now more than ever, Earth Day offers an opportunity for us all to reflect upon our relationship with the planet, amid the most powerful possible message that nature can surprise us at any moment, with devastating consequences for pretty much every individual. It is a time when the health of the planet and its people has never been so important.

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us," Carl Sagan, an American astronomer, wrote. "On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives."

Sagan's words are a short and powerful treatise on our one chance on this one planet. Now we get the chance to act on the lessons learned from the current crisis. Let us grasp this chance together.