Can we agree that Stephen Hawking is
smart? Smarter than most of us? Argue about that if you want, but I tend to
believe a highly intelligent scientist who has overcome realworld problems and contemplates
the future. Not the far future, because Hawking doesn’t think we earthlings
have much more time on our silly little planet. What surprises me is that his
projections haven’t been bigger news. Dr. Stephen Hawking, with twelve honorary
degrees, CBE, Companion of Honour, Fellow of The Royal Society and Member of
the US National Academy of Sciences, author of six bestsellers, says we have
100 years to get our shit together and then we have to leave. Thankfully, I
will have already left. But, honestly, your infant daughter or son, if they
don’t smoke or abuse drugs, aren't considering an assault on Everest or have lots and lots of unprotected sex could possibly see the end of the world. The
final days. They will suffer the torments of a dying planet. Anyone care about
that? And caring doesn’t mean that you drive a Prius. Fucking hell no.
Recognizing that most of what we are sweating about will be vaporized in a
century and nothing will change, nothing, unless all 196 countries on all 7
continents agree on almost everything. See that happening? Of course not.
Political parties and religions and races, genders, all theories regarding
variations of physical existence and our generally uninformed choices might get
us through the next year, might help us to feel as though we belong to the very best
group, organization, ethnicity, but when I read that one of the world’s great
minds thinks that Earth will be a blistered little cornflake in 100 years I
wonder why this isn’t the main topic everywhere; even in crummy places like
North Korea or South Carolina. I mean, fuck your stupid religions and trigger
warnings, microaggressions, candidates, legal weed, publishing your novel and
shopping at Trader Joe's. Kiss the kids goodbye and begin offloading the
accumulation of debris that has become our lives. It’s over.
It really doesn’t matter if you
bring your own paper bags to the grocery store.
If you care: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/05/05/stephen-hawking-just-moved-up-humanitys-deadline-for-escaping-earth/?utm_term=.36551f9a42c9
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