In recent years, as the planet that we inhabit has been overwhelmed with catastrophic occurrences caused by climate change, researchers and scientists have predicted that the Earth will soon be dilapidated as a result of global warming. Like his colleagues, renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking believed that the Earth is a ticking time bomb, with mankind having just 100 years remaining “if it [was] to survive.” Hawking reduced the figure from 1,000 to 100, but he made no remark to explain why he decided to “drastically cut our time on Earth by 900 years in one fell swoop.”
Hawking considered that climate change had reached the point of no return and that it would be one of the most difficult challenges that mankind would confront in the coming years. “We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible,” he told BBC News. According to him, President Donald Trump’s actions might drive the Earth over the edge, causing it to become like Venus, with temperatures reaching 250 degrees Celsius and sulphuric acid rain.
“With climate change, overdue asteroid strikes, epidemics and population growth, our own planet is increasingly precarious,” the BBC expressed in a statement regarding a show. “Professor Hawking’s ambition isn’t as fantastical as it sounds.”
“I strongly believe we should start seeking alternative planets for possible habitation,” Hawking said. “We are running out of space on earth and we need to break through technological limitations preventing us [from] living elsewhere in the universe.”
According to the BBC, Hawking felt that the probability of a calamity in any particular year was minuscule; nevertheless, that number mounts up over time, and it will be a near certainty in the next 1,000 or 10,000 years.
As reported by CNBC, Hawking was a part of an initiative named Breakthrough Starshot, which intends to construct ultra-fast light-powered spacecraft capable of searching for habitable worlds surrounding Alpha Centauri, a neighboring star. “Such a system could reach Mars in less than an hour, or reach Pluto in days, pass Voyager in under a week and reach Alpha Centauri in just over 20 years,” Hawking remarked.
Hawking’s viewpoints coincided with those of entrepreneur Elon Musk, another science celebrity whose ideas garner broad attention. “Either we spread Earth to other planets, or we risk going extinct,” Musk stated at a conference in 2013. “An extinction event is inevitable and we’re increasingly doing ourselves in.” He proposes to put humans on Mars, humanity’s ultimate destination, by 2025 and to establish a colony by 2033, both of which are well within Hawking’s time frame. Fortunately, there is still hope for the human race. As mentioned by Futurism, establishing Musk’s goal might take a few more decades at the very least. However, there have been others working to achieve that goal as well—NASA already has a Mars expedition in the works, and China is developing its own expedition to the Red Planet.
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