Hawking is a fascinating contemporary icon. Personally, I think it is incredible that the technology has been invented for him to use which allows his "voice" to be heard. Sometimes I get the eerie sense that there is a wizard behind a curtain controlling the public Hawkins entity.

With that said, I can't help to wonder if his idea that “humans must look to space for survival” was influenced by his inability to really experience earth on a physical level. He hasn't had the opportunities to build a source of nostalgia for nature, so to speak. For instance, he probably hasn't done a lot of things that many of us have, who have a deep appreciation for nature. For instance like, bust clouds while lying in a grassy field on a warm spring day, trail hiking, snorkeling or scuba diving, throwing a Frisbee in a park, hanging out in the wilderness and observing animals large and small, taking snapshots of birds, etc. These are just random examples off the top of my head.

You know, I have slowly become a cynic and as a result have started to understand Hawking’s views. The more that I hear about the dire state of our environment and compare that with the complacency of a society not willing to give up the conveniences of everyday life that add to the destruction to it, I can't help but to think that Hawking may not be too far from the truth.

Hawkings has been advocating this 'solution' for a long time now. Perhaps if he turned his obviously suitable intelligence to actually solving the problems here on earth, then we'd be coming up with more solutions then we have now...though I find that unlikely, still. We already have many solutions, we just don't wish to use them, or they are not used in large enough quantities.

Just another reason why environmental conservation should be at the top of Hawking's list...

I agree with Jon that we humans shouldn't deserve another chance if we destroy our home planet.
Why let our negative effects spread to other parts of the universe?
We should be in quarantine.

Now what Hawking basically said is that, if we're smart, we will look to another planet for habitation because we will inevitably destroy our home.

I used to think we were doing so much damage to this planet. And it's obvious that we are. Destroying ozone, and how many species have me helped go extinct?
But I also have to think that we're pretty arrogant to think that we are powerful enough to destroy something like nature.
We think that we have the power to change things like the weather (on a broad scale, i'm not talking cloud seeding here, I mean global warming for example.)

I think, whenever our course is run here on earth, mother nature will just continue on her way with us as a footnote.

But, the fact that we're destroying habitats for other animals, overpopulating the earth and depleting/polluting its resources for other species to survive is blatantly obvious.

On the matter of addressing those issues, I don't think we will really start to do anything about it until things get worse.
You notice, only when gas is $4.00 a gallon do we start seriously talking about 'alternative energy.'
It's going to take a larger blow than that to our everyday lives to strike the right chord and for people to take action as a whole.

But for those of us fighting to do every little thing we can for the time being, more power!

Promising news from Washington:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/03/ ... index.html