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 2017Stephen 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.
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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.”
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“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.”
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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”.
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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…
