We must flee Earth

skyline

Stephen Hawking says we must flee Earth - thestar.com

arwes

But all my stuff is on Earth!

dynamik

Of course we do; it's only a matter of time before we run out of resources, overpopulate, get hit by a meteor, etc.

earweed

Then we can go overpopulate and ruin another planet like we have this one.

skyline

I vote to send old Stevey boy 1st!

mikedisd2

I hope I can get better digital TV reception on Mars.

veritas_libertas

arwes wrote: »

But all my stuff is on Earth!

I'm kind of fond of this planet, it has oxygen!

Plantwiz

veritas_libertas wrote: »

I'm kind of fond of this planet, it has oxygen!

And the correct amounts of Nitrogen, Argon, Carbon dioxide, Neon, Helium, Methane, Krypton, Hydrogen, and Xenon (thse plus oxygen are in the 'air' we breathe), other fun things like H2O, small critters and plants to consume, not too hot and not too cold...yep, it's pretty good here.

Met44

It is good here on Earth -- for our lifetimes, but not forever. The question is how long we wait until we are prepared -- Hawking is saying "too late" isn't a good answer.

Temperatures will rise to dangerous levels on Earth long before the 6 billion year mark they give in the article. The shortest estimates for when Earth becomes inhospitable for life are around .5 billion years (500 million). Here's a way to think about it: Earth has been around for about 5 billion years. If highly evolved life had another 6 billion or so years to go on living on Earth, it would put Earth-life at around middle age -- not bad. With most Earth-life, including humans, having something like 500 million years left, we're practically on the death bed. That's to say nothing of nuclear proliferation and Hezbollah, which alone are plenty to make me want away from here.

I do wonder how Apophis will affect popular opinion on this within the next 20-30 years. You know, the stadium-sized asteroid heading our way which may come close enough to dip below Earth's orbiting communication satellites on at least one pass.

chrisone

Wouldn't this be a funny scenario, bound to make God himself laugh!

Year:3150 - Humans find new earth like planet
Year: 3175 - Humans travel to planet to populate, 1 billion humans left on Earth.
Year: 3180 - Humans arrive on new planet.
Year: 3185 - New Planet is hit by 2 devastating asteroids, Planet is now un-inhabitable.
Year: 3187 - Human survivors from Planet X return to Earth
Year: 3192 - Human survivors find a much richer and cleaner Earth.
Year: 3192 - God laughs

laidbackfreak

I don't know what the problem is the planet isn't going anywhere (unless its destroyed by a meteor or summit) sure humans will probably die off, but we're only parasites on it anyways. The planet will survive ok without us

Oh wait NOW I see the problem we all want to live forever and leave a legacy lol

veritas_libertas

Don’t talk to aliens, warns Stephen Hawking - Times Online

earweed

veritas_libertas wrote: »

Don’t talk to aliens, warns Stephen Hawking - Times Online

There may be "aliens" out there as Dr. Hawkings says, it's probable given the vastness of the universe and number of stars and other planets. Given that Hawkings in the OP's article states that we should prepare to evacuate the earth in the next few centuries it's just as likely we could accidentally stumble upon one of these "alien" planets and do to them what Columbus did to the Native American Indians.

stuh84

chrisone wrote: »

Wouldn't this be a funny scenario, bound to make God himself laugh!

Year:3150 - Humans find new earth like planet
Year: 3175 - Humans travel to planet to populate, 1 billion humans left on Earth.
Year: 3180 - Humans arrive on new planet.
Year: 3185 - New Planet is hit by 2 devastating asteroids, Planet is now un-inhabitable.
Year: 3187 - Human survivors from Planet X return to Earth
Year: 3192 - Human survivors find a much richer and cleaner Earth.
Year: 3192 - God laughs

Man, this just isn't the way its going to happen. It's quite simple how it all goes down...

April 5th 2063 - First earth-originated warp flight by Zefram Cochrane, first contact with the vulcans

Lots of years of being held back by the Vulcans, then the Coallition of Planets in 2155, then the Federation in 2161.

Then we seek out new worlds, new civilizations, to boldy go....

Okay I've strung this one out enough

earweed

chrisone wrote: »

Wouldn't this be a funny scenario, bound to make God himself laugh!

Year:3150 - Humans find new earth like planet
Year: 3175 - Humans travel to planet to populate, 1 billion humans left on Earth.
Year: 3180 - Humans arrive on new planet.
Year: 3185 - New Planet is hit by 2 devastating asteroids, Planet is now un-inhabitable.
Year: 3187 - Human survivors from Planet X return to Earth
Year: 3192 - Human survivors find a much richer and cleaner Earth.
Year: 3192 - God laughs

Year: 4020 Humans have once again stared polluting the planet as before and the richer, cleaner earth is going downhill
Year: 4020 - God sighs

shadown7

stuh84 wrote: »

Man, this just isn't the way its going to happen. It's quite simple how it all goes down...

April 5th 2063 - First earth-originated warp flight by Zefram Cochrane, first contact with the vulcans

Lots of years of being held back by the Vulcans, then the Coallition of Planets in 2155, then the Federation in 2161.

Then we seek out new worlds, new civilizations, to boldy go....

Okay I've strung this one out enough

That's great!

Seriously though, before Earth gets too bad I'll just head over to the SGC and take the Star Gate to a remote planet in the Pegasus galaxy since the Wraith are no longer a threat there.

dales

what we need by the sound of it is a few of these just in case!

skyline

Scion says the Big Burn is about 6 billion years away, plenty of time to check out other galaxies.

1. Earth is doomed
2. 2012 coming
3. ????
4. Profit

krusty83uk

Hope Mars decent internet connection!

msteinhilber

Don't you guys read the Interwebs??? We're all toast in 2012 anyways, jeepers!

chrisone

once we inhabit another planet or planets, what would you call the form of internet then?

inter-planetary-net?

i need to coin this phrase up to copy write it now lol

skyline

How about

Skynet?

Ahriakin

StarNet ( (c) Me 2010)

Kaminsky

All these doomsaying, logical and very believable documentaries, where the sky is about to fall in and we should all start building spaceships do my head in ... At our current technology level, do you realise just how much fossil based feul we currently have to use to get a mass the size of a can of baked beans into orbit; let alone then entire population.

Watching these stupid documentaries where a single "what-if" logically builds up with lots of other what-ifs right through the entire program into a practical fact that the planet is about to be eaten by a giant space goat all so some professor/doctor can make themselves out to be some sort of hero whilst raising a lot of funding for their next project.

Other stories/news items along the lines of were all going to get killed by a new strain of superbug, touching door handles, an upsurge in the kangaroo population, terrorists, cochroaches, jellyfish or freak accidents in the home whilst doing DIY... Gah.. how old do they think we are ?

Maybe I'm just getting old and synical but it all seems like ways of creating hysteria to scare the life out of the population just so that we all toe the line, pay our taxes, pray to Jesus and keep buying products. IE do whatever the government, the church or television wants us to do.

When your number is up... it's up! All we can do is our best to enjoy every minute of time and treat others as you would like to be treated until your specific number is called.

If humanity is ever going to start growing up, we need to watch a lot less television.

Turgon

Kaminsky wrote: »

All these doomsaying, logical and very believable documentaries, where the sky is about to fall in and we should all start building spaceships do my head in ... At our current technology level, do you realise just how much fossil based feul we currently have to use to get a mass the size of a can of baked beans into orbit; let alone then entire population.

Watching these stupid documentaries where a single "what-if" logically builds up with lots of other what-ifs right through the entire program into a practical fact that the planet is about to be eaten by a giant space goat all so some professor/doctor can make themselves out to be some sort of hero whilst raising a lot of funding for their next project.

Other stories/news items along the lines of were all going to get killed by a new strain of superbug, touching door handles, an upsurge in the kangaroo population, terrorists, cochroaches, jellyfish or freak accidents in the home whilst doing DIY... Gah.. how old do they think we are ?

Maybe I'm just getting old and synical but it all seems like ways of creating hysteria to scare the life out of the population just so that we all toe the line, pay our taxes, pray to Jesus and keep buying products. IE do whatever the government, the church or television wants us to do.

When your number is up... it's up! All we can do is our best to enjoy every minute of time and treat others as you would like to be treated until your specific number is called.

If humanity is ever going to start growing up, we need to watch a lot less television.

hehehe..while I do believe there are urgent problems we need to try and solve there is a lot of truth in what you say. Do your own research and dont buy everything the media tells you.

dynamik

Kaminsky wrote: »

All these doomsaying, logical and very believable documentaries, where the sky is about to fall in and we should all start building spaceships do my head in ... At our current technology level, do you realise just how much fossil based feul we currently have to use to get a mass the size of a can of baked beans into orbit; let alone then entire population.

Watching these stupid documentaries where a single "what-if" logically builds up with lots of other what-ifs right through the entire program into a practical fact that the planet is about to be eaten by a giant space goat all so some professor/doctor can make themselves out to be some sort of hero whilst raising a lot of funding for their next project.

Other stories/news items along the lines of were all going to get killed by a new strain of superbug, touching door handles, an upsurge in the kangaroo population, terrorists, cochroaches, jellyfish or freak accidents in the home whilst doing DIY... Gah.. how old do they think we are ?

Maybe I'm just getting old and synical but it all seems like ways of creating hysteria to scare the life out of the population just so that we all toe the line, pay our taxes, pray to Jesus and keep buying products. IE do whatever the government, the church or television wants us to do.

When your number is up... it's up! All we can do is our best to enjoy every minute of time and treat others as you would like to be treated until your specific number is called.

If humanity is ever going to start growing up, we need to watch a lot less television.

Oh, I completely agree that it's over-hyped. Nobody should be panicking. Hawking's actually been saying stuff like this regularly for quite awhile. I'm not sure why it's suddenly an enormous news story.

However, I also don't think that we should just ignore the inevitability that this planet won't be here forever. It's not like the ability to, say, travel to and terraform Mars is just a couple of years off. We've got a very long ways to go. I think it's a little too convenient to ignore the issue simply because it's not going to be a problem within your lifetime.

chrisone

The scientific hysteria is just the norm of todays dooms-day preachers. Back then it was doomsday by God's hand, plague this, plague that, even before the idea of a single God, it was the Gods plague this the Gods will doom that. Today since we have science and we hear it from scientists from their point on view. These doomsday myths have been happening since the dawn of time, i guess these thoughts come with original sin? remind me to kick adam and eve in the ass lol

Zartanasaurus

arwes wrote: »

But all my stuff is on Earth!

I'll look after it for you.

msteinhilber

Letting any form of doom get to you is kinda silly. All in all, it really boils down that we on our planet are relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of the Universe. There is so much left out there that we have yet to even discover, are unable to explain, or that which we think we can explain and even somewhat predict but ultimately our history of keeping watch and records of some of these things is essentially seconds of time over billions of years. We could be wiped out entirely seconds after I hit submit reply, or we may last another thousand or more years and learn to adapt to colonize other planets and predict incoming dangers.

Instead of focusing on predicting doom, I'll focus on something more attainable - such as 67 minutes from now when I'm on my way home where I will crack open a beer.

Met44

I wonder how many people actually clicked through to listen to what Hawking had to say. He is talking about a time scale of two centuries. People (including TheStar's writer) seem to be taking away the idea that he said, "start packing."

dynamik wrote: »

Hawking's actually been saying stuff like this regularly for quite awhile.

Thanks for pointing that out. Many of the most educated and knowledgeable humans in the field have been saying the same for years. These people are not just spouting doom and gloom or trying to make a buck -- Sagan said the same things up until his death. If anyone thinks this is "hyped" it's because you are getting your information from the wrong places. Of course the news is going to do that when they get hold of it. If you want to actually understand the situation, pick up a book. If you want to roll your eyes at "scientists" and pretend to be better informed on the topic without doing any work on your own account, well, I can't stop you.

I wonder how much this indicates about the situation: the Science and Technology section on TheStar's main page is toward the bottom of the page, below every other major section of the site ("Opinion", "Entertainment", ...) -- as it probably is on most US news sites, too. Within the Science and Technology section, an article about one of the world's greatest physicists is sandwiched between journalistic diarrhea about a Delta and Facebook partnership on the left, and an application to stop your Ex from showing up on your Facebook page below. No, I'm not kidding.