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Stephen Hawking: Trump could push the Earth over the brink

Commentary: In an interview with the BBC, the famed physicist says that the president's climate policies could turn our planet into Venus.

Chris Matyszczyk
2 min read

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He believes the president is sending us down a black hole.

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You walk out into the streets. They're melting. 

Which is strange, because it's raining. Wait, that's not rain. That's sulphuric acid. Your umbrella is melting too. 

That's the dark scenario painted by famed physicist Stephen Hawking to the BBC on Sunday.  And who might be responsible for this molten hell on earth? Why, Donald Trump .

"We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible," Hawking told the BBC . "Trump's action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus , with a temperature of 250 degrees, and raining sulphuric acid."

He was specifically referring to Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate accord and his seeming belief that, well, the concept of global warming was invented by the Chinese for material gain.

"By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children," Hawking told the BBC.

The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Oddly, Hawking was speaking to the network as part of his 75th birthday celebrations. He seemed unable to muster much good cheer. Actually, he doesn't seem to have been in a chipper mood about our future for some time. 

He's worried that aliens might hate us. He's insisted that we'll have to leave Earth within 100 years. And he's never felt a lump in his throat about Trump. He's confessed to being bemused by the president's success

Even in this latest BBC interview, he cast a somber veil over our future.

"I fear evolution has inbuilt greed and aggression to the human genome," he said. "There is no sign of conflict lessening, and the development of militarized technology and weapons of mass destruction could make that disastrous."

There's certainly no sign of conflict lessening when the president is tweeting a video of him pummeling the CNN logo.

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