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.
I can’t help think of this:
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Alarmists would be the guys holding up Bernie … (Hawking?).
“Tasteless”, you say? Well, sometimes I can’t control how tasteful my thoughts are. The polite thing to do would be not to verbalize them, I guess. But then we risk lying to ourselves on critical issues. A bit of shock can wake us up.
Poor Hawking – he should stick to theoretical physics and leave climate change to the . . . wait a minute, we’ve already tried that and it doesn’t work either! Anyway, too bad Hawking is exiting this world on a banana peel. The Linus Pauling Syndrome. God rest his soul.
Anyone who thinks climate change (just exactly what is changing, anyway?) is a clearer and more immediate danger than, say, the North Koreans or the Iranian mullahs is nuts.
“Only a few more years before the problem is irreversible…” ?? I thought we were already well past the supposed deadline. Imminent apocalypse – the gift that keeps on giving.
By the way, if there has (statistically) been no global warming during the last 17 years, by what logic do we only have a few years left to fix it?
Plus a whole big bunch of pluses.
+
I am not sure there is any room for being tasteful in Real Science, surely you just have to say it how it is.
Anyway what is tasteful in one community/country will get you killed in another.
Time to watch “Life of Brian” again I think.
The general population “might” all become experts in advanced probability and statistics in order to ignore the PR scams.
I’m afraid that the ALS has finally reached Professor Hawking’s brain! A brilliant man once, but now, sadly suffering the end stages of a horrible disease. Late stage Dementia is often a symptom of the muscle wastage of ALS when the brain cells can no longer perform work.
Mr Hawking won’t live to see that happen.
It is not going to happen.
Mr Hawking is the scraping of the barrel.
The last gasp at making the herd believe.
The BBC, interviewing him as a pundit, on climate is preposterous.
He may be a go-to on black holes,
but then the fund poured in to the climate models ,It must seem like a black hole.
I thought Professor Hawking was a theoretical physicist, not a climate scientist or economist?
Just like I don’t ask my doctor for financial advice, I don’t look to physics for climate advice.
Does this academic elitist know that the science of the “Big Bang” is NOT settled
It is notbonly Stephen Hawking making stupid statements. I recall watching that eminent astropyhsicist Brian Cox debating a Liberal Party politician on the Australian Broadcasting Commision’s Q&A program. The Liberal Party politician was expressing his doubts about anthropogenic global warming and talking aboutbthe pause in warming over the two decades when Dr. Cox prodouced his graph using Thomas Karl’s dodgy warming sea temperature data. “Look”, said Dr. Cox, “you can’t argue with the data. You can’t arguevwith facts”. Will Dr. Cox publicly apologise for misleading the Australian viewers? Yes, I admit it is a rhetorical question.
True, Cox was way out of line and was using outdated talking points and old lies instead of new ones.
However, to his credit, he stopped short of saying the Earth would be 250 degrees and raining sulfuric acid because trump backed us out of the Paris accord.
WooHoo !
A whole thread about the Professor.
Glad to see a few of you are doubting that it is the “original” Stephen and considering the “replaced with a fake” theory. There is literally loads of info on it all over the www, not just a couple of pictures. For my 2p worth I claim that the current manifestation is in fact a robot. Henceforth I shall now refer to it as the Hawkthing.
Hawkthing is one of the easiest robot duplicates which TPTB have produced as very little animation is required (Duh !). As I live in the UK, have my tentacles in various top universities and know something about physical testing I do now have a plan to expose this fakery. The apparatus is simple,non-intrusive, small and easily smuggled within a briefcase or rucksack, I just need one of the students or any adult to get within 10 feet of the Hawkthing to give you a 100% result and it can be done covertly so there is no risk to the operative.
Of course IF I am completely wrong and Hawkthing is in fact 100% human we will still show you the result for that is the way proper science shows itself to be honest and truthful.
Side bets are allowed.
ROFL (well, I would be if I weren’t afraid one of these Darleks would run over me). EXTERMINATE!
It is now officially appropriate to call Hawking a fool.
This is from a guy who changed his mind about 4 times about the makeup of a black hole.. Strangely, most of the other physicists went along with each change, even when the new theory contradicted the one before.
here is the ‘unedited’ interview
https://youtu.be/sunmCH_23as
..Proof that is B.S…..Hawkings can only type one word per minute…FAKE INTERVIEW !
Of all people, Hawking should be circumspect about predictions by ‘experts’, including himself.
From Wiki:
There is some Dark Heat out there!
Hi. I think it is at present not fair to kick a person that is physically laying down at present in way that he might not be capable to access the broad range of views and data required to propose a balanced point of view. Hawking has been a true, bold and in many ways bold Popperian scientist. Proposing alternative hypotheses during an outstanding academic career is a credit as large as can be. His work is and will provide a fertile ground for humanity when times comes to to able to and in demand to take the leaps from interplanetary to intergalatic existence. His time scale of climate trouble is wrong beyond discussion and is probably, as indicated above, to be blamed on his assistants. When you reject your own hypotheses and argue for new ones, and the rest of the world, by and large tries to follow you, you are an outstanding scientist.
On anther hand, it is obvious that the Russians has had nothing to do with Hawkins computer(s). Hydrocarbons have and will in a foreseeable future provide cheap and safe energy. Having that for sale and use has and will be a blessing for any nation and Russia has a lot. The combustion components is, however, a problem not properly dealt with thanks to the greens who cannot separate NOXes, PM fractions and CO2 in constructive way. Moreover, recall that that these “nasty and pesky” hydrocarbon molecules by and large are made from food (plants and a bit of animals) – and that they readily can be rearranged to food again. You just need other strains of bacteria to revert the degradation that has been done. If Putin and the other cleptogarks could see that much of light, they should buy the patents around asap. Siberia, with its ample supply of natural gas and cold water for cooling lively bacteria cultures is the ideal place to take global food supplies to another global level.
Then to the CO2. Nutty can’t understand why some hundreds of ppm is a problem. Back in time we had 6000 or more of these CO2 ppms, the plants were far less efficient CO2 harvesters then compared to the present state of chloroplasts, and hot and cold eras altered, the oceans were around as at present, and it was never the slightest hint of any runaway heating??? The bogus men left is the kind of solar insulation and the cloud cover in paleohistory. These factors might of course regrettbly be enough to cloud any further highlighting of reality. To me it looks like the Milankowitch cycles, implying more CO2 dissolved in the oceans, the ever increasing CO2 harvesting efficiency of plants + the by and large irreversible, carbon capture programs of the AGW (Al Gore Witchcraft) people is the ultimate damaging starvation combination for mankind. Who talks about the precautionary principle in that context?
ig·no·rant
[ ig-ner- uhnt]
ADJECTIVE
1.
lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned: an ignorant man.
2.
lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact: ignorant of quantum physics.
3.
uninformed; unaware.
4.
due to or showing lack of knowledge or training: an ignorant statement.
Anybody and everybody, no matter how high their IQ, is ignorant when they don’t know what they’re talking about.
I haven’t read every comment. Has Hansen and Venus been mentioned yet?
Maybe all those canals are that remains of railways that carried it’s “Coal Trains of Death”?
OOPS! Sorry. Wrong planet.
Dang!
I should have put the middle paragraph in blockquotes.
[;) ~mod]
“There is so much wrong with Stephen Hawking’s statement, its difficult to know where to begin.”
How about illegal. No different then yelling fire in a crowded theater. deceitfully stimulating the Amygdala of the under-educated mind for the advancement of a socio/political agenda to benefit the elite class should be at the very least a misdemeanor punishable with a fine. In this case a BIG fine.
Steve isn’t very bright. Who knew
I watched the “interview”. Where’s the evidence that Stephen Hawking composed the answers? Both the questions and answers seemed to have been prepared in advance. Hawking just seemed to be a prop.
My thought too. Something about that statement just seems off, style-wise, compared to other things he’s said in the past (that have made sense). Maybe I need to pull out my tinfoil hat or maybe not, but I smell a rat here.
I agree 100%…It’s not his style…
Yes, I too would now require evidence that these words originated from Hawking.
Given the one-word-per-minute composition rate of Hawking today, the responses attributed to him in this “interview” seem certainly staged, since the questions would have required prior responses that would have taken many, many minutes to compose. To present these prepared responses in the guise of an “interview” is definitely fake.
I have positively no way to know whether Hawking understood the questions or that Hawking even composed the answers to the questions. Given his limitations, he could easily be used as a prop, with words “put in his mouth”, so to speak, by somebody else.
Needless to say, I am now very suspicious.
“That is so stupid and ignorant I find it hard to believe that is what he actually said.”
Well, I didn’t see his lips move. The voice synthesizer did all the talking.
This finally blows Hawking`s reputation. His ignorance of Earth history is woefully exposed. How has he become a cult figure? Because of the BBC and other media, the same as they are now doing for the pretty boy professor from Manchester.
Mutant viruses ate his brain cells. Hawking has lost his mind. He’s now a retarded rapper
This story headline could apply to climate change advocacy as well……
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4085784-tesla-story-becoming-increasingly-fantastic-business-model-falls-apart
Stephen Hawking
died a long time ago this guy is just his stand in to be used to brainwash the general public on their agendas.
Hawking can’t do his research himself, he has to rely on his handlers. I suspect they’re feeding him the BS and he has never even heard the realistic side of the issue.