Stephen Hawking is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist. He is well respected in the scientific community.
I read in this article Stephen Hawking: Earth Will Become Unbearably Boiling Hot Like Venus Thanks To Withdrawal From Paris Climate Agreement, that “professor Hawking thinks US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, has doomed Earth to one day become uninhabitable. And repeated his warning, the physicist said climate change deniers should look to Venus which is now a boiling planet.”
“Venus, the second closest planet to the sun, was once Earth-like. But a build-up of greenhouse gasses in its atmosphere turned the planet into a boiling celestial body with temperatures of 250 degrees c and wind speeds of up to 100 meters per second.”
I know I’m not as educated as Stephen Hawking, but I have some questions for him.
How do you know that Venus “was once Earth-like”?
Was the “greenhouse gas” build up on Venus natural or caused by man?
Is the main reason Venus is hotter than the Earth because it is closer to the sun than the Earth, and not because it has a thicker atmosphere than the Earth?
If I am closer to a source of heat I will be hotter than if I am farther away. If I am standing closer to a camp fire than you, I will be warmer than you.
Having a thicker atmosphere traps heat not allowing it to escape (the greenhouse effect). Just as if I sleep with five blankets on top of me, and you sleep with two blankets on top of you, I will be warmer than you.
OTHER PLANETS
Mercury is closer to the sun than Venus so it should be hotter? Not necessarily. Because Mercury rotates slower than the other planets and it also has no atmosphere to trap heat, the temperatures on the side facing the sun is as hot as Venus but the temperatures on the dark side is over 200 degrees f. below zero.
What about Mars? Mars is farther from the sun than Earth and also has a thinner atmosphere than Earth. The average temperature of Mars is 60 below zero.
EARTH
We might say the Earth is in the sweet spot for supporting life as we know it. It is the perfect distance away from the sun so it is not to too hot or too cold, but just right. We non scientists might say Earth is in the Goldilocks zone. (I didn’t know that ‘real’ scientists have already coined this term until after I read this to my brother, who is a real scientist, and he told me the term is already being used).
The Earth spins at a rate which keeps temperatures relatively stable day and night. During the day no area of the Earth is in the sun long enough to get baked, and during the night no area is in the dark long enough to have all the heat escape as is the case with Mercury.
The Earth also tilts on its axis which keeps the areas closer to the poles from being unbearably cold all the time, as well as keeping the areas around the equator from being unbearably hot all the time.
Our atmosphere is the proper thickness or thinness to produce the optimum greenhouse effect. A greenhouse effect is necessary to support life. Many scientists ( Dr.Hawking being one) state with certitude that mans activities are producing an enhanced greenhouse effect, which will lead to a warming that will destroy the Earth.
I have a couple of questions for Dr. Hawking. Is the Earths distance from its heat source (our sun) the most important factor in the temperature of the Planet? Does an increase in greenhouse gasses by man change our atmosphere to a point that it will be like Venus?
For the Earth to even get close to the temperature of Venus our atmosphere has to become thinker than the atmosphere of Venus. Why? Since we are farther away from the heat source than Venus, we need a thicker blanket to trap more heat.
So Dr. Hawking I’m throwing the BS flag at your prediction that the Earth will become boiling like Venus because Trump got out of the Paris climate agreement. You are a climate change alarmist. When Dr. Hawking exaggerates to an extreme like this he is using a tactic that politicians use to get what they want implemented. It is a scare tactic.
In order for the Earth to become like Venus we would have to: 1) change Earths orbit so it is closer to the sun, a lot closer, 2) change the spin rate of the earth so the area on the sunny side heats up for a longer period of time, 3) Increase the thickness of our atmosphere to a point that it is thicker than Venus.
There is no way man can change the orbit of the Earth. Ergo your prediction about the Earth becoming boiling like Venus is on shaky ground to start with.
Since man cannot change the orbit of the Earth, he would have to pump enough greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere to make it much thicker than the atmosphere of Venus. This is not going to happen.
GREENHOUSE EFFECT?
But let’s get to the point about an enhanced greenhouse effect produced by man. Even the craziest man-made global warming predictions have the Earth warming by a degree in a hundred years. As if anyone could possibly know what the temperature of the Earth is supposed to be at any given moment past, present or future.
Does man release green house gasses into our atmosphere? Yes. But what has been the effect? There are so many factors that affect the temperature that trying to pin point one is impossible.
Do sun spots and solar winds have anything to do with temperature increases and decreases from year to year or decade to decade?
The planet came out of the ice age before man started pumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere?
CONCLUSION
Science is never settled. Science is a process agreed on by credentialed people to validate theories. But there is no amount of experiments or data that can prove a theory 100% true. And it only takes one experiment or piece of data to prove a theory wrong.
Stephen Hawking is espousing a theory. It is neither true nor false right now. It has to be put through the scientific process.
It is safe to make a prediction about the future when that prediction is a 100 years in the future.
We should never believe what people with credentials say. When you read or hear something that makes you tilt your head and think ‘hmm’. Trust your gut. Check everything out on your own. These experts may have an agenda or they may be wrong.
I think scientist Stephen Hawking is either a science denier if he believes what he said in this article. Or he is an alarmist with an agenda if he doesn’t believe it. Is what I think about Stephen Hawking’s theory true? We won’t know until more time passes.
AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS ADDICT 