Stephen Hawking has just issued a clear and stark warning to climate change deniers: amend your beliefs or Earth may end up like Venus. Don’t believe him? He’s offering to pay the fare for a voyage to Venus to observe just how greenhouse gases can wreak havoc on a planet.
“Next time you meet a climate-change denier, tell them to take a trip to Venus; I will pay the fare.”
On the most recent episode of Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places, the theoretical physicist described the startling similarities between Earth and Venus, including both its atmosphere and size, suggesting they were close enough relations to be called “kissing cousins,” according to Eco Watch.
“Venus is like Earth in so many ways, a sort of kissing cousin. She’s almost the same size as Earth, a touch closer to the sun. She has an atmosphere.”
Out of all the planets in our solar system, Venus has, by far, the most scorching environment, with average temperatures reaching a blistering 864 degrees Fahrenheit. Stephen Hawking is adamant that if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut down considerably and kept in check, Earth is hurtling on a path to become exactly like Venus is now.
To gain a better understanding of how this is possible, it’s worth remembering that Venus wasn’t always the planet it currently is, and for its first 2 billion years of existence, it may very well have had temperatures that would have easily permitted even humans to have lived on it, as Michael Way of NASA highlighted.
“Many of the same tools we use to model climate change on Earth can be adapted to study climates on other planets, both past and present. These results show ancient Venus may have been a very different place than it is today.”
Stephen Hawking: I’ll pay to send climate change deniers to Venus https://t.co/k8IynHM4KPpic.twitter.com/WgdBMgtpos
— CNET (@CNET) January 11, 2018
Owing to its close proximity to the sun, what may once have been liquid water finally evaporated on Venus and with a large amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a greenhouse gas effect turned it into the uninhabitable planet it is today, a fate that Stephen Hawking says may well end up happening here on Earth too.
“This is what happens when greenhouse gases are out of control.”
After Donald Trump made the decision to back out of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2017, Stephen Hawking issued the damning statement that our planet is very close to the point where there may be no return if something does not change soon, as The Express reported.
“We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible.”
So, if you find yourself wondering whether climate change is indeed real, just remember that Stephen Hawking has warned us all about the very real consequences our actions could have and has even offered to take us on a trip to Venus to see what happens when greenhouse gases aren’t kept in check.