All this worry over the climate is pointless. There is another ice age coming eventually, and when it does most of the population will be wiped of the planet. A few thousand years will pass, the ice will thaw and the survivors will start all over again.

I'm surprised Stephen Hawking isn't smart enough to see our best preparations should be used to plan a comfortable way to survive on a frozen earth. It's got to be easier to prepare for the future on the only planet we know for certain can accommodate us, than to be wasting time, money and resources on a project that will only benefit a handful of people on a one way journey. Hawking may be a genius but like so many in academia, he lacks common sense.

Dear ConservativeHippie...

"All this worry over the climate is pointless. There is another ice age coming eventually, and when it does most of the population will be wiped of the planet"

You can not be sure of this....True, the planet is well over its stable time frame, and the prospects of us ever leaving here' are next to zilch.

Iam happy to spend my time here on this planet and that's life as we all know it. On the other hand, we could have another 2.7 times to the value of what we already understand....If we go back in time, there is no time clock that can say this will happen at this precise moment and nor can we predict anything.

All life has started with chance and will end the same way.

Tally

I've always been a little awkward about the opinion of Stephen Hawking on this but a comment from a man like that must be afforded some level of seriousness.
I would say he isn't, in this instance, considering the impossibility of such a task: simply acknowledging that we are in truly desperate times and putting his name to such a statement will wake people up to that reality!! It's a political statement if you will...

As for Germaine, she is simply saying Hawking did not say populating other planets was possible!

People seem to get so bent out of shape whenever Germaine is heard but atleast she has a considered opinion to give. GO GERMAINE!!