Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Stephen Hawking thinks President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement and the British Brexit decision might trigger a chain of events which leads to the destruction of the world. My question – where is the evidence?
Hawking says Trump’s climate stance could damage Earth
By Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent, BBC News
2 July 2017
Stephen Hawking says that US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement could lead to irreversible climate change.\
Prof Hawking said the action could put Earth onto a path that turns it into a hothouse planet like Venus.
He also feared aggression was “inbuilt” in humans and that our best hope of survival was to live on other planets.
…
In its Fifth Assessment Report, the IPCC authors wrote: “The precise levels of climate change sufficient to trigger tipping points (thresholds for abrupt and irreversible change) remain uncertain, but the risk associated with crossing multiple tipping points in the Earth system or in interlinked human and natural systems increases with rising temperature.”
…
“We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump’s action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees, and raining sulphuric acid,” he told BBC News.
“Climate change is one of the great dangers we face, and it’s one we can prevent if we act now. By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children.”
…
And on Brexit, he feared UK research would be irreparably damaged.
“Science is a cooperative effort, so the impact will be wholly bad, and will leave British science isolated and inward looking”.
…
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40461726
There is so much wrong with Stephen Hawking’s statement, its difficult to know where to begin.
For starters, the US “commitment” to the Paris Agreement was never going to significantly reduce global CO2 emissions. China, whose emissions already dwarf the USA, demonstrated how they think the Paris Agreement is a joke, when they announced a colossal 20% increase in coal capacity in the next 3 years November last year. Green efforts to cast China as an environmental champion just add to the humour.
In addition to China’s heroic effort to emit plant fertiliser, as WUWT recently reported, 1600 new coal plants are currently under construction around the world..
Hawking’s suggestion that the USA could somehow lead others into economic hardship by destroying the domestic US economy is and always was a liberal fantasy.
As for Hawking’s claim we could end up like Venus, a statement without evidence, even from someone with Stephen Hawking’s reputation or from the IPCC, is no more valid than a prognostication provided by a psychic gazing into a crystal ball.
The Earth has experienced far higher CO2 levels than the present day. CO2 levels in the Cretaceous, the age of the Dinosaurs, were 1700ppm – more than 4x today’s level. The Earth has experienced extreme warming and extreme cooling, but has never experienced a runaway greenhouse effect which made it totally uninhabitable like Venus.
Gigantic CO2 belching volcanic eruptions which lasted for 1000s, maybe millions of years, huge meteor strikes, the advance and retreat of giant ice sheets – for billions of years since life began, nothing in our violent geological history has managed to shift temperatures outside a range where life is possible somewhere on our planet.
Nothing we have done or are likely to do to our planet can come close to what nature has already done – to what our planet has already endured.
In a few centuries fossil fuel resources will likely be exhausted. At most we shall add a few hundred more PPM CO2 to our atmosphere. Suggesting that our mild contribution to global greening is somehow worse than all the awful geological events of our planet’s history is pure and simple fiction.
Does that count the 1000 + coal fired electric generation plants the other members are building??? I guess the USA was to spend 2 billion $$ ofseting their construction. Yeah, it might destroy the world😳
Hawking’s speciality is physics, the standard model of physics which has been the “consensus” for several decades can only explain 5% of the mass and energy in the universe. They have to invent mythical “dark energy” and “dark matter” to balance their equations. That makes Trenberth’s “missing heat” look trivial.
Would you trust this man’s opinion on the energy balance of the Earth ?
Physics is out by a factor of 20, he is probably quite impressed with climate models which are only out by factor of two.
That is so stupid and ignorant I find it hard to believe that is what he actually said.
Yep. Hawking is out of his league and saying things that are embarrassing. Parallel between dark matter/energy and global warming is interesting and funny. Thanks.
That is because Global Warming is really brought about by a Dark Energy imbalance created by a Dark Matter inversion. Similar to the Dark Matter melting the Greenland Ice Sheet
I get it. Dark matter, dark energy and Trump the Dark Lord. We live in a post-rational world.
Yeah, what would Hawking know about radiation?
Greg – that (“That is so stupid and ignorant I find it hard to believe that is what he actually said.”) was exactly my first thought. But Pallab Ghosh does appear to be a reputable correspondent, so it seems reasonable to suppose that Stephen Hawking really did say it. How are the mighty fallen.
I would take his opinions on cosmology and black holes fairly seriously – in those fields he is a great scientist.
But he is clearly ignorant about the climate. Maybe he’s unaware that CO2 was far higher for most of Earth’s history, and that we actually live in an era of very low CO2. Without mankind, it’s even possible that the next ice age will trigger the biggest extinction in history due to falling CO2.
As Hawking has just shown, there’s nothing to stop great scientists also being great idiots.
Chris
I would like for just one of these loons to explain why it’s never happened before….
..they can’t even do that
Venus is Venus because it was too close to the sun for it too cool down sufficiently for the water in it’s atmosphere to condense out. There never was a “runaway greenhouse” on Venus, it’s always been as it is now.
Venus is currently hot because of how close it is to the sun and all the water in it’s atmosphere.
McClod, knowing about radiation gets you about 1% of the way to knowing about climate. If that much.
He’s trying to stay relevant. He’s smart enough to know that the mainstream media will never challenge his claims, no matter how ludicrous, and that the more over the top he goes the more he will be held up as a hero particularly by the left in the age of Trump.
I can only conclude that the Russians have hacked Hawking’s laptop…… if these were indeed ‘his’ utterings then he’s been bought, pure and simple.
Venus I’d hot not from its proximity to the sun but because of the atmospheric pressure. The surface pressure is 90 times that of earth.
Earth atmospheric pressure at MSL is 14.5 psi (pounds per square inch) or 1 bar.
Venus atmospheric pressure at the surface is 1305 psi or 90 bar.
The difference is roughly the weight of a 3000′ high column of water on top of you.
That increased pressure raises the temperature.
Venus has a surface temp of 750k 477c. To relocate it to the orbital distance of Earth would drop the temperature to roughly 650k. At Venus’ current atmospheric pressure, to reach Earth like temperatures it would likely need to be relocated to an orbit beyond Jupiter, about 7AU from the sun
It kind of makes you wonder if black holes really do evaporate, doesn’t it?
somebody fat sat on his colostomy bag. backed it up way too far.
OK, that’s an inappropriate insult.
couldn’t help it- i see pelosi in his eyes.
Ibelieve I read somewhere on google about the atmosphere of venus! it is said to have .002 /100 parts of water,
Science dies when scientists become politicians.
Or when they start kissing up to the politicians…
Or when they revert to activism
Exactly. Hawking might be a good physicist and great at mathematics but he is too trusting of the “science” he hears from other “scientists.” He has been duped. Give him five minutes with a real scientists who has examined the claimed “climate science” and he would go skeptics in seconds. The hard part for many people is accepting the fact that “climate scientists” who are selling manmade global warming are lying to the world for a living. Many find it hard to accept that they would sell out for the $billions and the agenda being pushed.
I think he has gone out of his gourd, sorry to say.
He is spouting delusional nonsense…gibberish.
It seems likely he is insane.
Raining sulfuric acid?
He has no idea what he is talking about, and this is the sort of drivel that even an idiotic teenager would know is fantasy.
I do not know why anyone should pay him any mind whatsoever.
He is plainly not speaking scientifically.
He is not even speaking rationally.
I wonder if he has been outside lately?
Possibly sharing whatever acid trip-type mass hallucinations that the warmistas suffer from, he seems to be having a particularly bad trip of it…man.
Don’t know if he has done much physics lately but I agree he does seem to have gone off the deep end.
He’s been duped and you haven’t. Hmm, what are the odds?
The odds are I know more about climate than he does.
The conclusions of the most intelligent people on the planet are only as good as the quality of the knowledge and information which they have available to which to harness their formidable intellect. What if what one has available to which to harness their intellectual sled has the quality and the power of a team chihuahuas? Do their formidable intellects work on the GIGO principle much in the same manner as the most powerful super computers? One would think so. Is it not likely that the highest intellect could take the garbage in and process it more rapidly and produce a more rapid and greater variety of garbage output than could the rest of us mere mortal everyday human beings? I know of no reason that the the powerful intellect wouldn’t be just as susceptible to attacks of mind-blindedness as are the rest of us, do you?
McClod, pretty close to 100%.
Does the cameos at The Big Bang Theory count as doing science?
hawkings wasn’t duped, he is just a liar. obviously to him, at this stage of his life, his show and end result is more important than truth. science does not reserve people from making such judgements, but it will, in the end, call them on it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30290540
it seems he likes this ehrlich like end of the world stuff.
The largest credible effect if the US stayed in the Paris accord was a reduction of .3C, the smallest .03C. Quite a stretch to get to 250 degrees and sulfuric acid rain.
Where is the sulfur going to come from?
Is he aware that Venus is a hothouse because the atmosphere is crushingly dense, and it is 30 million miles closer to the sun that we are, and there is a thing called the inverse square law?
Whatever brains he once had are long gone, it seems sadly obvious.
That is exactly what I thought. I can’t believe that he actually made these comments. He may be an expert in cosmology but should be more careful stating opinions outside of his area of expertise.
Also where’s the CO2 going to come from.
There aren’t enough fossil fuels to drive atmospheric CO2 past 800 ppm. Hawking probably knows what he’s peddling. It’s sad and pathetic.
@ur momisugly StephanF
“I can’t believe that he (Stephen Hawking) actually made these comments.”
One should keep in mind that Stephen Hawking only has access to the information and/or data that his, per se handlers, aides and/or assistants …… permit or provide him access to.
If Hawking has only been provided access to the “junk science” claims and “fuzzy math” calculations, estimations and insinuations associated with “CO2 causing AGW” …… then it is obvious he would have to support what he has per se “been told”.
There are other factors at work than the inverse square law. Venus has an atmosphere about 100 times as dense as ours, and also has sulfuric acid clouds.
Since temperature is proportional to the fourth ROOT of radiation, and radiation is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the sun, a planet identical to earth, 0.72 AU from the sun, would have a
temperature of { 1/(SQRT 0.72) }*287 K, or about 339 K. Of course that would be an unstable situation, with higher temperatures leading to more ocean evaporation, more clouds, and the disassociation of water molecules into their Hydrogen and Oxygen constituents higher in the atmosphere, etc.
Also, credit the fact that all of his compatriots are academicians, many of whom are on the climate change gravy train (and whose academic reputations would be ruined should their scare-mongering be shown to be fabulous.)
26 million million but what is few million miles among friends. More important is the ratio of the squares of the radii. Which = ~1,9. So Venus receives almost twice as much solar energy as does Earth. Of course it is hotter there.
+100. Thanks Tom, I was wondering when someone was going to point out that piece of highly ‘inconvenient’ research. Even more telling than Prof Hawking’s apparent ignorance of it is the fact that it is pointedly not mentioned by the BBC. When I was getting my journalism degree back in the late 60s we learned about balanced reporting and the need to mention, early on in a piece, alternative or opposing points of view. The BBC, once the sine qua non of journalistic standards, has now become a red-faced embarrassment. Pallab Ghosh, for example, is the BBC’s Science Correspondent – not a reporter, note, but Correspondent, a title that denotes seniority and a journalist with a wide-ranging knowledge of his specialty.
Similarly, they have Roger Harrabin as their Environment Correspondent who regularly provides po-faced, unbalanced commentaries about global warming (always ‘climate change’ these days on the Been after the earth stopped warming in line with rising CO2 levels) and the coming disaster. A few years ago I was fortunate enough to witness Christopher Moncton addressing a largely left wing and hostile audience at Keele University in a discussion about global warming. His Lordship was, predictably, magnificent but for me the most significant part of the evening was when he made a passing and mischievous reference to the BBC’s impartiality on the issue of global warming. His audience dissolved in laughter – that is how far the BBC has descended in its journalism…it has become a laughing stock even to those people who are its traditional supporters.
I make this point because it is important for us all to remember that although it is sad when a distinguished man of letters such as Stephen Hawking makes a complete ass of himself that it is the sombre, serious and – yes – completely unbalanced way in which it is reported by the BBC and other MSM that does the real damage.
If you thought Christopher was good a couple of years ago, you should have seen him in 1988:
“Science is a cooperative effort, so the impact will be wholly bad, and will leave British science isolated and inward looking”.
Science is NOT a co-operative effort. Throughout history advances have only been made by the brilliant insights of just a few individuals. Science of the establishment mob has not empowered these individuals by encouragement.
Britain has ignored the lessons of history, choosing to be part of the EU collective. The average Briton has part a terrible price for group think socialism.
Eh. You can kind of say that there were a number of scientific advancements that were made by inspired individuals, but most of science is a long slog by groups who are in competition to offer up cooperative contributions. This is particularly true for most modern science.
That said, Hawking is still talking nonsense here.
Count,
“You can kind of say that there were a number of scientific advancements that were made by inspired individuals…”
I’m sayin’ it ; ) and stretching that number to the vast majority, as far as I am aware . .
” . . but most of science is a long slog by groups who are in competition to offer up cooperative contributions.”
I don’t believe it . . unless you just mean; if there was competition, all competitors constitute a group . . or are just lumping people that advanced work done by others together, in the “shoulders of giants” sense . . I mean, of course discussions and checking out others ideas and results and so on is a good thing (and can obviously be done even easier now, regardless of something like the Brexit), but “group-think” is not especially . . productive in science, as far as I’ve seen . .
Actually it isn’t and it is. Under Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions model, breakthroughs are often made by individuals. Long slogging “normal science” then fills in some of the blanks.
Count: Hmm. I recall some discoveries by individuals or small teams. DNA structure. Benzene ring structure. Einstein’s equations. Residual radiation from the big bang. Vaccines. Oh, hell, just consider: there is no such thing as the common mind (ie, a mind shared by many participants). And guys like Richard Feynman don’t come along every day.
Isolated, inward looking, self-referential—he must be talking about “climate science”.
Was it Newton who said that the only reason why he could see so far, was because he stood on the shoulders of giants?
It’s unclear what Newton meant by using that phrase in a letter to Hooke. The phrase “a dwarf on the shoulder of a giant sees farther than the giant” was already a commonplace in 17th century English. It’s possible that Newton was belittling Hooke, who wasn’t a dwarf, but was hunchbacked.
Here’s what Newton actually wrote in 1676:
“What Des-Cartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, & especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen further it is by standing on the sholders of Giants.”
Most historians of science think Newton wasn’t slighting Hooke, since they were still on cordial terms at that time. Only a few years later, after Hooke had dared to challenge some of Newton’s ideas on optics, did they have a falling out, which grew more bitter until Hooke’s death in 1703.
Cooperation and group think is not the same thing. You are confusing the two. Of course scientists should work together and discuss their findings with other people. They should not live in a cave somewhere or never share their findings with others or refuse to see findings from other people. They should not think that they are automatically right and everyone else is wrong. That would be bad. Scientists SHOULD cooperate, discuss and debate with others. Group think is when some scientist or group of scientists assume authority and impose their view on others. And if you disagree you labelled as “heretic” and are kicked out of the community.
You only have to see the postings on Facebook from ‘Scientists For EU’ to see this very effect !
Someone hacked Hawking’s computer. Any guesses?
The Russians…
the Russians
Maybe he isn’t getting enough oxygen >
The DNC masquerading as the Russians.
Al Gore. Would make a great South Park episode.
I wonder if the AGW alarmists will point out the the eminent prof H is not a climate scientist and hence should butt out?
Indeed, it’s the excuse for silencing many other commentators who are able to think for themselves, assess evidence and come to a contrary conclusion to the “consensus”. It’s the intelligent, independent-thinking 3% we should be listening to to provoke contrary and questioning thought. That’s how advances in civilisation and science are made, not by clinging to the safe group-think.
Given that the Earths atmosphere has been both warmer/hotter and held vastly higher concentrations of CO2 in the past, yet we are all still here and so is the planet, I have to wonder at his logic.
Further, with regard to the “isolation” of British scientists post-Brexit, I wonder if Hawking has heard of these things called the internet, telephones and even ships or aeroplanes that help connect scientists to each other in distant parts of the world. I think Hawking himself has managed to use these means in the past.
Sometimes it seems those in possession of the highest IQs are actually the least practically intelligent people.
Translation…he has not a trace of common sense.
This is where we get the Dunning-Kruger effect on steroids.
Despite being a genious, if he says something I don’t agree with, then that makes me smarter. Wow.
I’ve long been wondering about Hawking’s neurological condition. It is usually referred to as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but as an MD I’m not aware of any other case that has survived even half as long as Hawking has.
ALS is not supposed to affect the mental faculties, but can we be sure that
a. this remains the case if the patient survives this long,
b. Hawking even has ALS and not some other condition with similar motor manifestations, which however does also affect cognition?
I personally don’t feel sure of either.
Tony: do you know Godwin’s law? It applies not only to you know who but equally to your tired “Dunning-Kruger effect.”
At least I’m smart enough to know how to spell genius.
McClod, offering up projection at it’s finest.
No I was just smart enough to google it before prattling on about it.
It’s not about smart people getting things wrong. It’s about under-educated people over-estimating their knowledge or ability and also the reverse – smart people under-estimating theirs.
Moa below gets it completely arse about.
McClod, so you were able to google a term and then proceeded to declare that those who disagree with you are suffering from it.
As I said early, projection is the only mental skill you have mastered.
Or so smart they’re stupid.
Oh the humanity!
I would like to hear prof hawking’ opinion on lord Monckton upcoming paper on the feedback formula.
It is amazing to see a smart person like StephenHawking being so confused by low grade propaganda from Global Warmists. He seems unwilling to use his critical faculties and intelligence to examine the statements and arguments about ;Global Warming’.It would take more than coal plants to turnthe Earth into a Venutian Hell. People moving from Minnesota to Florida show a greater grasp of reality than Stephen Hawking.
Hawking’s wheelchair is always plastered with left wing bumper stickers, and his physics has always been theoretical, self contained, and based on hypothesis more than data.
Exactly…he may have been more of an idiot-savant than a sprawling intellectual giant.
There are people way smarter and have shown acumen across a great many fields and areas of thought…men like Freeman Dyson for example, who reject the warmista jackassery out of hand.
It is made up boloney, the lot of it.
There is no shred of evidence anything bad is happening, and much practical proof that the world is blossoming and becoming safer, greener, more tranquil, and hospitable for life.
That someone who has a mostly undeserved reputation for being extra smart has bought into the most over-the-top brand of alarmism we have ever heard only means his brain has turned into pink cereal.
Poor bastard.
It’s the “theoretical” physicists who seem to be most out of touch with reality. After all, reality can seriously upset ones theory when they meet head on.
…and I say this as a theoretical physicist who’s doctorate was in Hawking’s general field.
His medical problem started with his muscles. But now the problem seems to have reached his brain.
Being stuck in a withered body must be a terrible thing to live through for all these years.
We know that a healthy body is required to nourish the brain and keep it functioning properly.
In any case, I see no reason to think that he is even the person saying this gibberish…it seems more likely he is a sock puppet for his caregivers.
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” – Arthur Conan Doyle
Stephen Hawking died and has been replaced.
http://milesmathis.com/hawk3.pdf
Explains a lot Tim.
i have wondered about this a few times over the years…how the hell he was still alive when almost everyone with the disease is gone in a few years.
He’s someone’s bitch me thinks.
I am not placing too much stock in that theory of him being dead. He may be, or maybe not. maybe he had some dental work, and they figured out a way to get him more calories.
I few pics is not much to go on.
There is a more convincing case about Faul McCartney. Just look it up on youtube.
Facial analysis.
Enough to be convincing as long as you are looking at the pics.
But then stand back and wonder what it would take to keep anyone from spilling the beans.
He does look different, and so does McCartney, and George did always call him Faul after a certain point in time…
Miles has a theory on Paul too. Apparently he is twins and the earlier twin retired and lives in comfortable obscurity. Childhood pictures of paul with brother Mike McGear are really of the twins, and the adult McGear is unrelated to them.
Also, Miles has worked out the John Lennon didn’t really die and is currently living in Toronto where he pretends to be a Lennon impersonator.
This is all very entertaining stuff as well as totally flaky to the unaccustomed ear, and it’s way off topic and best avoided at WUWT, but the possible death of Hawking and the possible subsequent fraud in marketing him as a living “expert who speaks for science” is, I think, a valid subject. Hawking’s death around the time he had that tracheotomy done would make perfect sense. ALS patients don’t usually linger on for decades and they don’t get fatter over time, as the Professor has.
But even if the real Hawking still lived and breathed, he would be totally dependent on his handlers and his words would be dependent on whoever controlled his PC. Outsiders would have no means of verifying that he was the author of anything attributed to him. He would be literally a puppet, a living version of a ventriloquist’s dummy.
I never gave the Paul McCartney thing a thought until I happened across a you tube video and a website with about a million pics of Paul before and after September 1966.
It is impossible to deny that he appears to be a different person…different face, larger stature, sounds and plays differently.
The big thing is the face…the relative position of such things as eyes and chin and mouth do not change as one ages…the bones of an adult to not change shape or length.
If anyone thinks it is impossible…just give this a few minutes of your time:
https://youtu.be/kJ–09W0eqk?t=1m54s
I think that he has just been elevated to the status of ‘prophet’ just as H G Wells was at the beginning of the 20thC. So any pronouncement is treated with reverence and not questioned especially by younger reporters…. anyone under 50yrs old.
Thanks, Eric! I saw this ridiculous piece of “news” from the BBC yesterday and sighed! They just can’t stop pumping out this drivel, can they? Today, they’re showing pathetic pictures of buildings in New York and Paris lit up with green LEDs to highlight the “Paris Agreement” ahead of the G20 meeting! And yet, they still haven’t even mentioned anywhere the shift in US energy policy that was signalled last week by Trump. The once-venerable BBC has become a more & more of a joke over the past 20 years! Pretty sad!
Please keep up the good work at WUWT, drawing attention to the stories and facts that actually matter and providing a place for discussions on such a wide diversity of real science!
Thanks Phil 🙂
Agree Phil, thanks Eric
Well said Phil Rae + 100
Hawking’s just might have a point
With…
President Trump’s Paris Agreement Decision might Destroy the World
“the World” will not be receiving billions and billions of American Dollars 💲💲💲 after all
…and I’m certain “the World” was totally destroyed over not getting their greedy hands on our money
Boo Hoo 😭
How do any of us know what he actually said ??
Blink once for yes and twice for no?
Maybe we should send him to Talos IV with Captain Pike. He’d probably be happier there.
If only.
I am reaching the point where I would be happier there.
Do we get that blonde chick?
What if all of this is simply due to a speck of dust in his eye, and the computerized speech system controlled with small eye movements just misinterpreted?
A mote in his eye? Maybe his Fyunch(click) misinterpreted…
You’re spot on, Eric, thank you. The highest and the mightiest can say it, but we must continually press for evidence.
To call him the highest and mightiest is to disrespect a lot of people.
He deserves pity, but not to be headed as a fount of wisdom.
If it is even him saying this.
This drivel from anyone is reprehensible…no less so by dint of who speaks it.
Reprehensible, or just delusion.
My apologies. I wasn’t describing Prof Hawking specifically. Perhaps I should have said “Even the highest and the mightiest might say it” but we still ask for evidence. Still, there’s no doubt Hawking has been held in esteem to be among the highest. But I can’t join in the general condemnation on show here. No matter his sudden errors on climate science he has made contributions in physics that outshine numerous others.
My recollection from when I used to pay attention to those guys (I gave it up when it became quite clear that were heaping speculation on speculation as if they were talking about anything real) was that Hawking was shown to be wrong about most if not all of what he came up with after being the first to explain how a black hole might evaporate.
But no one knows what is going on inside of collapsed matter.
They are just making it up.
The whole notion that they can decide who is right and who is wrong because information can never be lost from the universe makes zero sense.
Examples: Raindrops hit the ocean in a certain pattern and order, and have done so for billions of years.
Where is that information?
The library at Alexandria was sacked and burned by the Romans (IIRC), and so went the repository for a vast store of unique texts.
Where is that information?
When a person dies, they have a giant amount of information in their brain…what happens once that brain rots or is eaten by worms or both?
The idea that all of this information is still in existence but just scrambled up a bit is ridiculous.
Conservation of mass and energy…well, OK, although it leaves the question of from whence came all the stuff?
But conservation of information as a bedrock principle of physics?
I missed the derivation lecture on that.
Menicholas, “information” has a particular meaning in particle physics that is a little different than your intuition. Under that definition, no information is lost in your raindrop example. When speaking of black holes, “information loss” refers to a causal disconnect–evaporating particals having no causal connection to the particles originally swallowed by the black hole.
Still, there may or may not be some theoretical way of extracting information from the other side of an event horizon, but we certainly have no prospect of accessing a black hole any time in the foreseeable future to test any of it. Personally, I think that the postulating singularities extrapolates physics so far out of the realm of the known that something unknown may prevent them from existing.
That is basically what I have always thought…that where equations go to infinity you need new equations.
I doubt the universe does infinity.
But human intuition does seem to prevent actual full understanding of quantum mechanics.
Fair point if I misunderstand what is referred to as “information”.
I would certainly like to understand it.
“We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump’s action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees, and raining sulphuric acid,” he told BBC News.”
It’s sad to see a brilliant mind lose it so spectacularly.
Agree Patrick. It is sad to see someone in is condition.
At Richard Treadgold.
“No matter his sudden errors on climate science he has made contributions in physics that outshine numerous others.”
Are you assuming the contributions or do you have evidence?
Evidence. For a long time there has been widespread admiration of his achievements and writings. The abrupt onset here of sadness at his apparent decline is incongruous, notwithstanding that I too disagree strongly with his alarmist summary of our climatic future.
Hawking also advocates that humans must find another planet within 100 years–it’s imperative (somehow).
Personally, I work outdoors as much as I can in the yard, the pasture and my orchard.
In the past several months I’ve taken more time to notice my surroundings than usual, considering Hawking’s recommendations that we leave this amazing planet.
I’ll go under one condition: That the “new” planet is better than this.
I think I’ll be here until I age out.
Much of my criticism is regarding the totality of his recent statements and things he is advocating for.
This snippet about tipping points being perilously close…we are teetering on the brink, boiling oceans and raining sulfuric acid…bad enough.
But this crap about finding a new planet…well fine, if one comes along.
But why a hundred years?
And he makes it sound like we will ALL be going somewhere, because he has seen the future and as the smartest man to ever live he knows that after 4.5 billion years…well, in 2117 the jig is up and earth will be a acid soaked cinder.
I do not like that you can be locked up for hate speech in the UK and Germany and some other places…but I think scaring the piss out of children by telling them their planet is all but dead should be a hanging offense.
Kids are known to commit suicide after getting bad news they cannot process.
It is not just “Climate Change”, he is also worried about Asteroid strikes, as we should all be and Pandemics etc.
So he considers, as many do, that the Human Race needs to spread out to prevent a single catstrophe from ending it.
A C Osborne,
And I agree with that.
But needing to do something never assured it being possible or it actually getting done.
We are heading in the wrong direction to get even started.
And deindustrializing over a scare story aint gonna help in the slightest!
Is there plans to change orbit as well?
I read an article many moons ago about a way to keep the earth cool as the sun slowly grows hotter.
Everyone is familiar with the so called gravitational sling shot, whereby a space probe can be accelerated by having it pass close to a planet on a carefully designed trajectory. A small portion of the planets momentum is transferred to the probe.
The sling shot also works in the other way if you use a different trajectory.
The article claimed that we could slowly increase the diameter of the earth’s orbit by using asteroids to transfer momentum to the earth. The author’s calculated that a single 100ft diameter rock, once a century would be sufficient.
(seems to me that a gravity tug would both be easier and safer.)
Is it too much to ask a renown scientist to actually use physics? Venus is not hot from CO2. It is hot from:
a. Being 1/3 closer to the sun and therefore experiencing more than 2 times the solar radiation per square meter.
b. Having an atmosphere 67 times as dense as the earth’s atmosphere.
Unless we are on the brink of changing orbit and transforming the oceans into atmosphere, his statement makes absolutely no sense.
Venus is actually cool due to CO2. The law governing gas temperatures assigns co2 a lower energy holding capacity than standard atmospheric mix.
If you had atmospheric air from Earth comprising Venus’ atmosphere
the temperature would be several dozens of degrees cooler.
In fact there’s a very important thread here about that very fact by Steve Goddard revealing the level of sheer lying about fundamentals of thermodynamics done, by government employees for the past 30 – count em
thirty years.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/06/hyperventilating-on-venus/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/08/venus-envy/
Dumbstruck
“In a few centuries fossil fuel resources will likely be exhausted.”
If I thought that I was going to be around in a few centuries, I’d offer you a hefty wager that you’re wrong. There are more “proven reserves” now than there were 10 or 20 years ago.
Fossil fuels will be like every other commodity. As the easy to get at sources dry up, the price rises a little bit.
This causes the producers to spend more money to find and develop new sources(greater profit) and consumers to find ways to use less or substitute other products.
As a result we never really run out of anything.
The World most certainly will come up with a replacement for fossil fuels in the next two hundred years.
So it’s an appeal to authority for someone who deals in theories?
Hawking has forever been in a snit because he came down with ” Lou Gehrig’s ” disease, not ” Stephen Hawking’s” disease.
He’s never got over it.
The prognosis for “Lou Gehrig’s” disease (ALS) is not good. About 1 person in 25,000 will be diagnosed with ALS. Most of them die within 2 to 5 years of being diagnosed, usually because of respiratory failure. Stephen Hawking has apparently survived for 54 years (since his 1963 diagnosis) with it. That’s so far outside the bell curve that it’s nothing short of miraculous, or else its fake news and Hawking is no longer with us, and the man in the wheelchair who communicates with the world via PC is somebody else.
I am beginning to have a hard time remembering why stephen hawking is suppose to be so great. It seems like he has become the punchline to some really bad jokes.
The claim about Earth’s becoming like Venus and raining sulfuric acid is the most ridiculous claim from a brilliant mind that I have ever read. Could someone have rigged a speaker into Hawking’s communication set up that broadcast what somebody else was inputting into his voice device? Such a ridiculous statement attributed to him makes me wonder.
This is a sad revelation of how scientific specialization can go horribly awry. Hawking obviously is not a polymath.
I’m just having a hard time wrapping my mind around the truth of Hawking’s having said what is attributed to him here.
Yes, I feel the same way.
If he said it, he is stupid and crazy.
If not his words, it means less than nothing.
now you know.
he was only ever a poster boy for inverted values.
his claim to fame is being a cripple.
read his book. it’s stupid squared.
He has been quoted as saying something similar about a decade ago.
Hawking has a lot of company in his thinking about CAGW. Many otherwise intelligent people have been fooled by the dishonest CAGW narrative, too.
Hawking is just another dupe adding to the confusion about the subject.
Hawking is a man
who believed a story
about special insulation put between a fire and the rock it warmed,
and as each subsequent percent less light reached that rock,
an additional percentage of light that never reached that rock
leaked out.
Less light warming a rock
makes it warmer,
than when more warming light warmed it.
Hawking is self confessed, too stupid to properly answer the question ”what happens to the temp of a light warmed rock, less light warmed?
The next time somebody tells you that you don’t understand global warming
tell them you do. But that you need them to show you how much warmer the planet gets
with each successive percent of available warming sunlight never reaching Earth due to Green House Gases.
Currently they stop 20% total warming firelight from the sun from reaching earth.
Have the global warmer tell you how much warmer earth got when warmed by 1% less sunlight.
Then have him tell you how much warmer the planet got when warmed by 10% less sunlight.
And then on to 15%
and on to 20% which is how much Green House Gases stop from reaching the earth today.
Make them explain it to you in exacting detail. Before you break out laughing in their face.
Last time I checked, CO2 doesn’t block visible light.
And in breaking news, geologists have just discovered a more recent epoch which they are calling the Anthropo-Narcisscene
Spokesperson for the Stratigraphic Society said that despite the almost incomprehensible enormity of the earth time record, and the inversely proportional almost incomprehensible temporal insignificance of homo sapiens, there has been a massive upsurge in rectal deposits emanating from middle aged depressive academics and politicians desperate to validate their fragile and brief existences on planet earth!
I you don’t already know what a coprolite is, look it up.
We can then refer to the current period as The Coprocene.