Hawking On Earth's Lifespan

Anonymous Coward writes "According to this news (in German) of the computer magazine c't, the world famous physicist Stephen Hawking predicts, that mankind will not survive on earth for another millenium. Hawking fears that the atmosphere will become hotter and contain more and more acid like the atmosphere of the planet Venus, so that men can no longer live on earth. The only solution would be to colonize the space and find another planet to live on."

Comments

Reality Check

[SuperDuG]

Okay this man is obviously one of the smartest people in the entire world if not ... the smartest astrophysicist to date. If this man was not disabled then maybe we'd take it just a little more seriously, but it's more fun to make jokes and give them a rating of 5 because people don't want to hear bad news. Believe it or not the way we treat this planet and the rate that population is increasing coming to the realization that there will be an end to the world may not be that far fetched of an idea.

As for hot spells and acid rain ... Acid rain is nothing new to the world ... just ask anyone in L.A. ... And hot spells ... let's go into the gobi and ask people there how they feel about hot spells ...

Acapolyptic literature has been around since the begining of time ... hence the book of revelations ... people need fear it's a driving force ...

Independance Day

[Spudley]

"They're like locusts. They move from planet to planet, consuming every natural resource, and then the move on to the next."

[mis?]quote from the movie Independance Day. He was referring to the aliens, but who else was reminded of it when they read this article?

I'd hate to see the Earth become unihabitable...

[Narag]

It's where I keep all my stuff :(

yeah that's the solution

[djKing]

The only solution would be to colonize the space and find another planet to live on.

Yeah that will be much easier that cleaning up the one we have now. -Peace Dave

Re:yeah that's the solution

[plague3106]

It's disgusting, but it's business.

Thats redundent.

Re:yeah that's the solution

[Sir Tristam]

You can "shrug off" Liberty's senseless warnings about greenhouse gasses, explain the volcano thing, and tell her to get a fucking haircut.

But this is Steven Hawkings talking.

Might I point out that Steven Hawkings is a theoretical physicist, not an environmental bio-chemist? Just because he's the top in one field doesn't mean that he knows squat in another field. I don't know about you, but if I had to have heart sugery done, I would pick a fairly decent thoracic cardiovascular sugeon over the world's best veternarian (or even oral surgeon, for that matter) any day of the week.

Not to take anything away from Steven Hawkings, of course. If I needed a description of how a black hole would peel the atmosphere off the Earth if the two collided, I'd ask Hawkings. For a prediction of the environmental future of the Earth otherwise, he's not tops on my list.

Re:yeah that's the solution

[Mr. Slippery]

And.. there are those of us who believe that for the most part the "greenhouse effect" is a bunch of BS.

The greenhouse effect is 100% established fact - without it, the planet would be much colder.

The only debate is whether human activity is causing a rise in greenhouse gasses, and causing global warming. And it's not much of a debate; there is a strong scientific consensus that human activity is altering the climate.

More CFC's are released from one single volcanic eruption than you can dream of releasing in your lifetime.

Volcanic eruptions are rare, while there are over 6 billion people on the planet. So your point is?

Earth has its own cycles that we strive very hard to but never can comprehend.

Which is a pretty good reason not to mess with them, no?

Earth can take care of itself I think, *shrugs*

Um, yes, the rock will still be here no matter what we do. And it would be really hard to get rid of all the life that's on it; some fungi and bactera would probably survive anything short of the Sun's death. But if we fuck it up enough, we could take out the ecosystem and ourselves with it.

Re:yeah that's the solution

[Hard_Code]

I second this. You know, I don't consider myself a sandal wearing tree-hugging nut, but I do really think it is stupid that environmentalism is considered radical. It really is dumb. Environmental soundness should not be percieved as radical, but should be the *default* modus operandi. It should be taken for granted. What should be seen as radical is the gigantic amount of waste we create and participate in. Every item you use today, think of how much energy it took to create and will take to dispose of that item. Think of where that energy is coming from. Because it's out of sight it's out of mind.

Saying that we have basically ruined this planet so the solution is to go and exploit another is evidence of this mentality. So is Bush's proposal that to "solve" the energy crises, we should go make more oil rigs in Alaska! Instead, of course, of forcing the energy industry to redeem to us our investment in them to create alternative energy solutions. The absurdity! As the saying goes, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The hammer is conventional, limited natural resource-based energy solutions. The nail is our rapacious and wasteful percieved need for such gratuitous energy and resource consumption.

http://www.adbusters.org/home/

global warming is FOR REAL

[maynard]

P.J. O'Rourke talked about this in his books, Parliment of Whores and All the Trouble in the World.

Environmentalism is a special interest group. However, it tries to go beyond that by appeals such as "the environment affects everyone", which is true. I don't disagree with environmentalism per se, but when the environmental groups make statements such as, "...the environment must be preserved, regardless of cost..." you have to wonder what part of it they are smoking.

Now, as far a global warming, and the like goes, does anyone here remember what the big environmental scare of the 70s was?

Global cooling.

And guess what you could do then to prevent global cooling, and stop those glaciers from crashing down on us? The exact same things that are being touted as the cures for global warming.

Quoting a political pundit for scientific evidence supporting or to the contrary of any position is a quick walk to demagoguery. Whatever the long term consequences of fossil fuel energy production and other environmental assaults, it's doubtful P. J. O'Rourke has much to say that's relevant.

That said, there's significant evidence of large scale global change, not about to happen but happening right now. For example:

• species all over the world are migrating from equatorial regions to the poles as the climate warms. This includes birds, insects, mammals, rodents; you name it. The important point is that it crosses species boundaries across the globe.
  
• Polar ice cores and tree rings give us the historical perspective you suggest we lack. A reading of ice cores across many thousands of years conclusively state that our planet has never (within the period recorded) seen this level of atmospheric carbon levels change in such a short period of time.
  
• The polar ice caps are melting and breaking up and flowing out to sea. These are some of the largest ice bergs in recorded history. To whit, many pacific islands are flooding from the rising sea levels. Entire countries are disappearing under the sea.
  
• Methane trapped in the polar regions as ice are melting at an alarming rate. Methane traps significantly more heat in the atmosphere than just carbon, and could on it's own lead to catastrophic global warming.
  

On the point about global cooling, this is ALSO a possible outcome simply because changing a stable system cause unpredictable outcomes; similar to the butterfly effect often widely discussed.

Never mind the global consequences of unregulated energy production from fossil fuels. The fact is that we're running out and NO ONE is proposing sensible solutions toward sustainable energy production.

Coal/oil/natural gas are out, for obvious reasons. Fissionables are out, not only is it unreasonably dangerous but we don't have anywhere near enough uranium to provide the 10 terawatts/year our world now consumes. Photovoltaic is out, it costs more energy to produce a solar cell (with current technology) than it will ever produce across it's lifetime. This leaves:

• Solar steam (directed sunlight at a water reserve to turn a steam turbine. Very efficient, though an intermittent supply.
  
• Wind. Like Solar it's intermittent, but it's also highly efficient.
  
• Geothermal. Doable now in certain areas, some scientists are looking into the possibility of drilling down far enough to hit mantle and tap thermal heat directly. This looks quite promising.
  
• Fusion. Who the hell knows?
  
• In addition, coal could be used for the next few hundred years (until we run out) if we can figure out how to cheaply cap the carbon output and bury the materials safely.

This is for real dude. I hate to break the news, but our children are in serious trouble if we don't act now. And unfortunately, our politicians are too busy taking bribes to bother with their primary responsibilities to their citizens and constituents.

Re:He's got a point

[dsfox]

Those of us who left would probably be the intelligent ones..

I guess it won't be the modest ones!

Garbage: Bury it at subduction zones

[1010011010]

http://greenwood.cr.usgs.gov/pub/open-file-reports /ofr-99-0132/

Might work. We'd be shoving the garbage into Earth's very hot and very radioactive mantle, where it will be recycled into rock. Why bury it in the valuable lithosphere?

___________________________

Re:He's got a point

[Alternity]

I don't think that when we finally colonize Mars we will really get away from corporations and government. I have read an interesting theory in a fiction book (ok it was fiction... so what). The colonization effort will require a HUGE amount of resources. The various governments, space agencies and all will look for private funding to achieve that goal effectivly selling parts of Mars or whatever planet we decide to colonize.

Even if this is coming straight out of fiction book I don't think it's too crazy a possibility. I sure hate to break your dream of a martian utopia but whether what I just described happens or not, I am pretty sure someone, somewhere will find a way to either profit from a planet colonization or to abuse it and put himself in a position of power.


"When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun...

It's a trap!

[OlympicSponsor]

His dire predictions of acid rain and recommendation to colonize space is just a ploy to get all out of reach of Earth's gravity where his disability will no longer affect him--and he can crush us like bugs with his mighty exoskeleton!
--

Steven Hawking: Lyrical Terrorist

[austad]

MC Hawking rules!!!!

Let him drop a little science on your ass.

A more practical suggestion

[Wellspring]

Quite the contrary. We will need to move into mine shafts deep in the earth. Food can be stockpiled, pigs can be bred und schlaughtered.

In order to allow the human race to quickly regain its old numbers, we will need to bring a hundred women for every man.

The men can be chosen from the finest examples of humanity: scientists, programmers, engineers, great leaders, etc. The women, however, should be chosen based on their fertility, and their ability to entice men to undertake the onerous task of breeding so many of them so often.

Figure skaters, actresses, musicians, cheerleaders, all possess qualities which will lend themselves to additional fertility. I expect that while it will take great effort and creativity to keep their men suffiently aroused to perform their duties to humanity, that the greatest of our men will rise to the challenge.

I guess it is time to stop worrying and love pollution....

(Apologies to Stanley Kubrick)

Funny Babelfish Translations

[nharmon]

In a lecture in Edinburgh explained Hawking, either a " accident or the ground electrode warming " would extinguish the life on earth.

Ahh! End of Life on Earth according to Hawking involves a short in an electrical circuit heating up and...

the atmosphere becomes ever hotter, and that it becomes, meant like Venus bubbling sulfuric acid

turns the earth into bubbling sulfuric acid!

Re:While it'd be much easier..

[xtal]

to clean up the planet we are on now, has anyone ever thought that it might not be possible?

This just plain isn't going to happen in a "Free" society (economic freedom, anyhow). Not unless you and everyone you know are willing to give up gas-guzzlin pollutin SUVs (the days of a fuel cell SUV are a long, long, long way off), willing to give up consuming massive amounts of food, willing to give up massive water and power consumption, and in short, give up much of the luxuries that western society is based on! And let's not forget that India and China are working as fast as they can to go through THEIR industrial revolutions and get to where we are as soon as possible. Short of imposing draconian restrictions on freedom (ain't gunna happen), space research is the only alternative to the human race being extincted. NO, we're not going to launch 6 billion people into orbit, but you don't need that for a self sustaining colony, either.

Now, "our planet is dying." Yes, our planet is getting hotter. (Hell, it was 92 degrees here yesterday, and we're in October. Huh?) Is this man, or is this the natural cycle of events? Is this Mother Nature wreaking her revenge on those who would try to control her?

No, you CANNOT conclusively say our planet is doing anything that it hasn't in the past. Earth has ALWAYS been changing; It has violent tectonic cycles that we don't experience over our civilization's timeframes, would you blame a catastrophic quake in california on "Earth getting even", no, of course not, that's stupid. Earth was a LOT hotter a dozens of millenia ago; It will be hotter or maybe even colder in the future. WE HAVE NO ATMOSPHERIC MODEL, so we can't tell. By the time it matters, we'll be dead, and our kids will be, and likely, THEIR kids will be. If we're not doing something more productive by then, well, I'll be dust anyhow. Until then I'll work to improve technology in any way I can, and maybe it'll make a difference.

You can come up with ideas and examples all day long, but the basic fact is that man doesn't live long enough to have a clear view of what's happening to the Earth, and why. The ozone hole is even in doubt according to some scientists. Who is who, and who decides the planet is dying?

Ahh, the voice of reason. This is _so_ true. Man will have exterminated HIMSELF long before our environment does it to us; We can last a long time, even if we can't go outside. Dig a hole and use nuclear power. Mankind is a great innovator and extremely adaptive when need be. Of course, this isn't practical for 6 billion people, but your fellow man in Africa doesn't drive a suburban, either.

If the planet's death doesn't get us, the mere fact of overpopulation will.

Fud, fud, fud. Once a society becomes industrialized, the cost of children increases and the necessity of having them to insure someone will care for you goes away, since you can save money. Then, birth rates _collapse_, which is what's happening in North America and Western Europe. Their is no reason to assume that higher living standards in China and India won't do the same - although, there will be a LOT of pollution from those efforts. Do you know how many hundreds of millions of tons of coal China burns every year? Your car doesn't make a lick of difference in comparison. They have no choice.

We will never colonize another planet, however, because the populace at large doesn't care about space. It's viewed as a "neato" thing until the bill comes in. Nobody wants to pay taxes to fund NASA, and private corporations have too many regulations on them. (Probably for good measure; I don't know.)

This is sad, but true. The only thing that will make us colonize space is a major disaster costing millions of lives on Earth. Something along the lines of a asteroid strike (best), limited nuclear war or biological warfare agents run amok (worst, by far), etc. I wrote a really good rant about this on /. some time ago. You're right, we're all jaded about space, because none of us will ever get there. Which is a shame, becuase if more people got to see how small earth is from 100,000 feet, and how BIG the black background is, maybe we wouldn't be killing each other over things like Religion and stupid political egos and work together.

But, I'm bitter. YMMV.

He's got a point

[Tony Hammitt]

I'd like to move to Mars. Getting away from the government and megacorps would be good with me.

I think that most people wouldn't move no matter what. As Heinlein pointed out, most people in Pompeii knew that Vesuvius was rumbling and didn't leave town. Most would just die here.

Those of us who left would probably be the intelligent ones, so it may not be bad for OUR species. Can't say that it would help all of the other species much. I won't miss the flies.

But I don't think that Earth will become uninhabitable. Once the atmosphere starts killing people, there'll be less people to pollute it, so we'll have some negative feedback in the system.

But just in case, let's make sure that IPv6 has lots of addresses set aside for other planets =-]

While it'd be much easier..

[Talonius]

to clean up the planet we are on now, has anyone ever thought that it might not be possible?

I'm not an environmentalist. Sometimes I wonder if man knows as much about science as he likes to believe. As a specific example, look at the various statements made abouts food. Salt is bad for you. Salt is good for you. Salt is bad for you. Salt is bad for you only if you already have high blood pressure. Repeat for eggs and cholesterol.

Part of the problem is that everyone is an expert in this day and age; there is no one authorized source of information. (Nor would I endorse such a thing.) The side effect is that a lot of plain misinformation abounds.

Now, "our planet is dying." Yes, our planet is getting hotter. (Hell, it was 92 degrees here yesterday, and we're in October. Huh?) Is this man, or is this the natural cycle of events? Is this Mother Nature wreaking her revenge on those who would try to control her?

You can come up with ideas and examples all day long, but the basic fact is that man doesn't live long enough to have a clear view of what's happening to the Earth, and why. The ozone hole is even in doubt according to some scientists. Who is who, and who decides the planet is dying?

As for man living out the millenia, he's dead because of himself. If the planet's death doesn't get us, the mere fact of overpopulation will. We will never colonize another planet, however, because the populace at large doesn't care about space. It's viewed as a "neato" thing until the bill comes in. Nobody wants to pay taxes to fund NASA, and private corporations have too many regulations on them. (Probably for good measure; I don't know.)

-- Talonius

Re:While it'd be much easier..

[hey!]

to clean up the planet we are on now, has anyone ever thought that it might not be possible?

Indeed.

I think the terminology you use is in itself too optimistic. "Clean up" makes it sound like its just a problem of moving gross quantities of matter from one place to another; just use some energy to reduce entropy here and dump the waste entropy into space.

Th reality is that we live on a tiny, but highly complex organic film on a big, dead rock. We are destroying biological information evolved by this system over millions of years by destroying habitat and species, essentially taking that organic complexity and turning it into waste entropy.

I don't know if we'll turn the planet into venus; you can't easily project something like this because there are complex feedback systems involved. Perhaps there are situations under which positive feedback could force huge changes in climate, but in terms of gradually accumulating anthropogenic factors people will die off in large numbers well before anything remotely as drastic as the venus scenario plays out. I expect that the world in a thousand years will still look a lot more like Earth than Venus, although possibly with a much larger or much smaller human population.

Enviornmentalists who like to think of the problem as the survival of the human race look down on people who see the environmental issue as one of aesthetic; I think the aesthetic folks may be closer to the truth. We're as likely to go extinct any time soon as the cockroach. I like to point out to my environmentalist friends that if "sustainability" is the sole criteria, we have nothing to worry about because "unsustainability" is by definition a short term condition. The real issue is do we want to have the conditions of equillibrium to occur when we have fouled the nest so badly our options are gone, or do we wish to control some of the conditions under which equillibrium is achieved.

Another way of phrasing the question: do you want the Earth to become a maximally exploited combination human feed lot/garbage pit? Or would you like to hand the next generation a world remotely as pleasant as the one we inherited?

In reply to Hawking

[ackthpt]

Stephen Hawking predicts, that mankind will not survive on earth for another millenium.

I'm amazed we got past 1961...

Hawking fears that the atmosphere will become hotter and contain more and more acid like the atmosphere of the planet Venus, so that men can no longer live on earth.

Well, all that coal and oil once was up here and it was a pretty tropical place. It was buring all that carbon that made this place so damn cold.

The only solution would be to colonize the space and find another planet to live on."

How about Mars? That's really cold, even on a good day.

If man were to colonize other worlds it stands to reason that we'd have to take agriculture with us. Now there's a topic for some serious genetic engineered crops...


--
Chief Frog Inspector

Ewww...gross...

[OlympicSponsor]

Hawking On Earth's Lifespan

cchcchcch...ptoo. Take that, Earth's lifespan.
--

Not a solution

[roystgnr]

Anyone want to estimate the cost, per immigrant, of putting someone on Earth in a viable orbital (or Mars) colony? Anyone reading my posts here might recognize me as a space nut^H^H^Henthusiast, and I'd say a million dollars per person is a good figure to shoot for. Even Robert Zubrin wouldn't put a one-way ticket to Mars lower than $300,000 without dipping into the "well, it's theoretically possible" technology pool. In any case, the travel expenses are going to be overshadowed by the cost of having the people already there (in the case of Mars) digging you out someplace to live, mining ice for you to drink and grow things with, and generally making a home on the other side.

So let's play one of my favorite games, "Fun with Almanac Numbers":

250,000 more people on the Earth every year, plus
6,000,000 one thousandth of the current population, equals
6,250,000 people we need to evacuate each year.

times 1,000,000 dollars per emigrant, equals
6.25 trillion dollars per year.

I can't find any good figures for World GDP, but this is somewhere around a fourth of it. Feel the burn. Of course, the proper figure to compare to is not World GDP, but the cost of our best alternative, the "not fucking up the Earth" plan. Opinions vary, but 6.25 trillion a year is an order of magnitude above most of them.

Besides, if we all went to Mars we'd just end up terraforming it eventually anyway; we might as well practice terraforming Earth first.

Does a smart man always tell the whole truth?

[Stoutlimb]

Last I heard, he was a quantum cosmologist, not an environmental scientist. Sure, he's smart, but even smart scientists can make mistakes if they don't have the correct data, and somehow I don't think he does.

Firstly, because he underestimates the ability of green things to grow absolutely anywhere... I'm not sure humanity is capable of wiping out enough of regenerative greenery to cause that kind of environmental disaster.

Second, he underestimates the force of the demographic transition. As this polluting technology makes individual lives easier, the population growth rate declines and stabilizes, reducing the load on the environment. As it is here in Canada, more people die than are born. Thank goodness for immigrants!

While not ruling out several holocausts, in the long term I see humanity stabilizing with the environment in a new ecological balance. This won't happen any time soon, I think we have to wait until industrialization runs its course and we run out of our fossil fuels. Then, we wait for biotechnology to run its course and settle down into something stable. We then will be in symbiosis with our manmade ecology. Once we settle down into a several hundred year groove and all are new technologies become old, we will be in a steady state. But mind you, I see bumps and population "corrections" along the way.

But once we get to that harmonious steady state... Why settle the stars? We could be happy and content here for millions of years.

I think old Steve knows the best fire he can light under interstellar settlers is the threat of imminent death... So why not predict doom to achieve that end? Heck, I would.

my two cents...
BORK BORK BORK!

Don't be Silly

[Greyfox]

He obviously intends to drive real estate prices down, so he can buy low. Once he owns Malibu he'll probably come out with an updated prediction "Oh, I was wrong, ha ha ha. Imagine that..."

What about Earth?

[tiny69]

The only solution would be to colonize the space and find another planet to live on.

If we can't take care of the one we are on NOW, how in the @#$%* are we going to make a different planet inhabitable?

Re:Top breeders != super models

[Wellspring]

Well, actually not. The body of a a figure skater, Hollywood actress or cheerleader in most cases is not suitable for heavy child production. To be able to withstand the labor of multiple pregnansies and survive (atleast in extreme conditions we are talking about) the women should be build, eh differently. Wide hips are a must. Large utero and strong bone structure as well. Your average top mother for next generation would look much more like a weight-liftress from Romania than, say Natalie Portman.

Medicine can solve the mechanical problem. The challenge is this: can we find women so attractive, so enticing, so triple Xplosive that one hundred can all get regular attention from a single man?

Two romanian weightlifters would just barely be able to arouse enough of a libido to cover both of them. I'll guarantee you that a NP-level of sexiness is required to give a man the energy to handle 100 women. And that, the sheer quantity of hot love-making, is the technical challenge of the post-apocalyptic earth. Only Smooth B has the savvy to devise a solution to this problem.

Actually he isn't talking about Earth'sd life span

[the-banker]

Read the article. He is talking about humankind's lifespan on Earth. It is quite arrogant to believe that we can actually harm teh planet. We harm ourselves, the planet will endure. A different planet, but a planet nonetheless.

Just be upfront with ousrselves - it should be "Save the Humans", not "Save the Plant".

Marc

English version - The Times

[semrich]

an article appeared in The Times here. Dated 30/Sep/00.

Just finished a relevant book...

[mr.ska]

Sunday I just finished reading Macrolife ; by George Zebrowski, which directly pertains to this. In the book, a man-made disaster forces the evacuation of the planet. The only humans that remain are living on Mars, Ganymede, more out in the Jovian system, and a large colony living inside a hollowed-out asteroid called Asterome. Not to give the story away, but Asterome heads out of the solar system and starts living its own life as a mobile human colony.

Although we don't currently have gravitic or superluminal propulsion, space colonies are IMHO the best solution to where to live next. Mars would be OK... but there's no atmosphere that we can use (plus it's too thin otherwise). The moon is good, but it's even more limited than the Earth. If we could harvest a few large rocks from the asteroid belt, we could put up some sizeable colonies in either Earth or Sun orbit.

Of course, if we fuck those up like we did Earth then there's really no point... :(

Famous scientists at Cambridge

[Rupert]

There must be something in the water at DAMTP[1]. People there do brilliant work, become famous, and then go stark raving bonkers. Now it's happened to Hawking, like it happened to Fred Hoyle and Herman Bondi before him.

[1] "DAMn The Physicists" as we used to say in DPMMS.

--

Wrong translation!

[uradu]

"Menschheit" is gender-neutral and literally means humanity. "Mensch" means human, not man, though is often translated that way. Usually phrases like "Der Mensch ist ein seltsames Tier" get translated as "Man is a strange animal" rather than "The human is a strange animal", I guess because it sounds less awkward.

Doubt it...

[SEWilco]

"It's taken us three hundred years to upset the planet's balance"

Three hundred years ago is when the Little Ice Age happened. It was unusually cold then, so of course it's warmer now.

"The most recent big cooling started about 12,700 years ago, right in the midst of our last global warming. This cold period, known as the Younger Dryas, is named for the pollen of a tundra flower that turned up in a lake bed in Denmark when it shouldn't have. Things had been warming up, and half the ice sheets covering Europe and Canada had already melted. The return to ice-age temperatures lasted 1,300 years. Then, about 11,400 years ago, things suddenly warmed up again, and the earliest agricultural villages were established in the Middle East. An abrupt cooling got started 8,200 years ago, but it aborted within a century, and the temperature changes since then have been gradual in comparison. Indeed, we've had an unprecedented period of climate stability."