14 DAY TRIAL // Technological advancements that took place over the past few decades have made the world a very dangerous place to live in. Nuclear missiles are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to methods that humankind can employ to destroy itself. Global warming and chemical weapons are also high on the list, as are other natural factors. Famed physicist and scientist Stephen Hawking believes that the world needs to look at the stars for inspiration, and leave Earth before it's too late.
The famed expert believes that it's wrong for humankind to keep all of its eggs in a single basket, so to speak. “I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let's hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load,” Hawking tells Big Think.
He also mentions the fact that the world's resources are currently being depleted at a massively-high rate, far beyond what can be replenished naturally or artificially. Greed and the quest for profits is making large corporations hinder innovation in fields of science investigation alternative energy sources, and this will soon manifest its effects on the planet. Hawking believes that we wouldn't want to be here when that happens. Plus, he adds, the Sun will only take a few billion years before it expands to envelop Earth, so we shouldn't be here at that time.
Speaking about situations such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, which almost saw the onset of global nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union, Hawking says that “the frequency of such occasions is likely to increase in the future. We shall need great care and judgment to negotiate them all successfully.” Even if we are successful in doing so, the Sun will kill all life on Earth over a period of time. When it begins to swell, global warming will increase its effects, until all water is evaporated. Without the precious liquid, life as we know it will disappear.
“Life on Earth will have disappeared long before 7.6 billion years. Scientists have shown that the Sun's slow expansion will cause the temperature at the surface of the Earth to rise. Oceans will evaporate, and the atmosphere will become laden with water vapor, which (like carbon dioxide) is a very effective greenhouse gas. Eventually, the oceans will boil dry and the water vapor will escape into space. In a billion years from now the Earth will be a very hot, dry and uninhabitable ball,” says Dr. Robert Smith, an astrophysicist at the University of Sussex.