While Carl Sagan was outspoken about political issues, the popular perception of his characterisation of large cosmic quantities continued to be a sense of wonderment at the numinousness of space and time as in his phrase "The total number of stars in the Universe is larger than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth", however this famous saying was widely misunderstood, as he was in fact referring, in his "Cosmos Series", to the world being at a "critical branch point in history where our actions will propagate down through the centuries" as in the following quote from Cosmos: A personal Voyage: Episode 8: Journeys in Space and Time:

"Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth. Each of those worlds is as real as ours and every one of them is a succession of incidents, events, occurrences which influence its future. Countless worlds, numberless moments, an immensity of space and time. And our small planet at this moment, here we face a critical branch point in history, what we do with our world, right now, will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants, it is well within our power to destroy our civilisation and perhaps our species as well."

Will we change our spending habits, our pollution regulations, our recycling processes, in time to save our little blue dot? I understand that the opportunities we face are not solely pollution related but if we band together on these projects we will find a common goal, a common love for our fellow earthlings and for the planet we so lovingly call home. I am counting on it, counting on us......