Turns out we should’ve all been paying a bit more attention during our binge-watching of Ice Age during Christmas.
As we head into 2025, the impacts of artificial intelligence and climate change may still feel like a safe-enough distant reality, however, that doesn’t mean ‘disaster’ isn’t coming as predicted by the late theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Stephen Hawking – and potentially Ice Age: Collision Course too.
Who’d have thought, eh?
Stephen Hawking’s real voice
Director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge and considered one of the most prestigious academics across the whole world, Hawking shared several theories, concerns and suggestions before he passed away in 2018.
One idea he repeatedly advocated for was the idea of humans trying to find another planet to inhabit rather than simply relying on Earth.
During a press conference in 2017 in London, Hawking warned: “I strongly believe we should start seeking alternative planets for possible habitation.
“We are running out of space on Earth and we need to break through the technical limitations preventing us living elsewhere in the universe.”
And it’s not just running out of space which Hawking was worried about either.
Hawking voiced the need to find another planet to live on and not just rely on Earth (Getty Stock Images)
Given how close asteroids come to Earth – some even colliding with our planet – it’s far from wild Hawking shared his concern about a large asteroid striking Earth and wiping us all out in a mass extinction.
We may laugh about it all when binge-watching Ice Age, but it’s actually a more real possibility than we realized age nine – or 24, hey I don’t judge – shovelling popcorn in our mouths while watching Scrat and his acorn obsession result in a huge rock barrelling towards Earth.
Oh and it’s not just asteroids to worry about either, artificial intelligence on the rise – TV series HUM4NS now looking like it really was predicting
Throw into the mix climate change, genetically modified (GM) viruses and nuclear war and hey, it’s a miracle we’re all still alive really.
And in a 2016 interview with the BBC, Hawking predicted just how long humankind has left if we do remain on Earth and only Earth.
Note to humanity: Don’t let any squirrels into space anytime soon (20th Century Fox)
He warned: “Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or 10,000 years.”
There is hope however, Hawking noting at the time he was fairly confident we’d have all found a way out to another planet by the time ‘disaster’ does strike.
But that doesn’t mean it will happen within many of our lifetimes, the physicist guessing humans won’t ‘establish self-sustaining colonies in space for at least the next hundred years’ and so ultimately we will have to be ‘very careful in this period’ ahead.
So, how about taking a leaf out of Greta Thunberg’s book and becoming an environmental activist for 2025
Featured Image Credit: Bruno Vincent/Getty Images / Mike Marsland/WireImage/Getty
Topics: World News, Science, Space, Artificial Intelligence, Climate Change
The self-proclaimed Living Nostradamus has revealed his seven predictions for 2025, and they are frightening.
Brazilian Athos Salomé claims to have correctly predicted worldwide events such as COVID-19, CrowdStrike’s Microsoft outage, Elon Musk taking over Twitter and the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
But now he has his sights set on next year.
Similar to Baba Vanga, who is famous for her accurate predictions, Salomé has seen success with a few of his own predictions.
However, that doesn’t mean his predictions are safe from plagiarism.
Salomé told the Daily Star: “I have noticed that, on several occasions, my predictions are appropriated by other individuals (not clairvoyants or paranormal experts) who present themselves as the originators of these ideas.”
However, now that he’s come out with his 2025 thoughts, there will be no debate about who predicted these huge events.
Here’s what he believes is in store.
GM people (Matthias Kulka / Getty)
Genetically modified humans
Salomé predicted that a slew of secret genetic experiments will be revealed which will shine a light on genetically modified human beings.
Forget GMO food, they’re GMO-ing people now.
According to him, technology has been involved in changing people, which includes cloning.
He also thinks that scientists will expose governments and corporations have been manufacturing ‘perfected’ people which are stronger, smarter and able to resist illness.
AI will be sentient (Colin Anderson Productions pty ltd / Getty)
Artificial Intelligence becomes uncontrollable
Ah, AI.
According to Salomé, AI will become out of control by 2025.
He revealed that there will be a global event which could expose that these technologies have some sort of autonomy and self-awareness.
That’s creepy.
ETs are coming (Donald Iain Smith / Getty)
Contact with extraterrestrials will happen
Salomé revealed that authorities will officially declare the existence of ETs, and even provide a range of proof of microbial life on Mars or civilizations that are out there in space.
An energy emergency (Bloomberg Creative / Getty)
A human manufactured energy emergency
Here comes another disaster prediction (like Baba Vanga didn’t predict enough).
According to the seer, a global energy crisis will be used to control people by 2025, which could be part of the generators of zero-point energy which will continue to be concealed from the public eye.
Controlling the population (Carlo A / Getty)
Population control tactics
Like every futuristic dictator movie, Salomé believes it’s going to become a reality for us on Earth.
He shared that there will be an implementation of technology that is used to monitor people, such as implantable chips, which are then touted as being used for the greater good.
A disaster is coming (Bulgac / Getty)
Manufactured natural disasters
Another manufactured disaster? You betcha.
According to the Seer, geo-engineering will cause significant climate disasters, which are not limited to hurricanes and droughts in areas that don’t usually get them.
The military is being secretive (gorodenkoff / Getty)
Secret military operations
Salomé revealed that there will be an exposé on underground bases and experiments such as gravitational propulsion.
It’ll also shine a light on what our governments have control over and it’s not looking pretty.
He said: “2025 will be the point of time when the authorities start to officially declare existence of ET, offering proofs of microbial life on Mars or other more complicated civilisations.
“Strategic silence will be at play from some governments like that of US, Russia and China as they hide information with a view of causing a global upset.”
Featured Image Credit: Instagram/@athos_salome / Getty Stock Images
Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Weird, Climate Change, Technology, News
A former NASA astronaut has opened up about the ‘sobering realization’ he experienced when looking down at Earth from space.
Ex-NASA astronaut and author Ron Garan spent a whopping 178 days in space and it was a moment when he was looking down at Earth from the International Space Station which caused him to experience what’s known as the ‘Overview Effect’.
The ‘Overview Effect’ often takes place when astronauts go into space and look down and see Earth from that perspective for the first time. The experience ‘shift[s] […] the way astronauts view and think about our planet and life itself,’ NASA explains.
Garan has accumulated ‘more than 71 million miles in 2,842 orbits of our planet’ coming to a total of 178 days, however, it was the moment he looked down at Earth which made ‘certain things become undeniably clear’.
In an interview with Big Think, Garan explained: “We keep trying to deal with issues such as global warming, deforestation, biodiversity loss as stand alone issues when in reality they’re just symptoms of the underlying root problem and the problem is, that we don’t see ourselves as planetary’.
“When I looked out of the window of the International Space Station, I saw the paparazzi like flashes of lightening storms, I saw dancing curtains of auroras that seemed so close it was as if we could reach out and touch them and I saw the unbelievable thinness of our planet’s atmosphere.
“In that moment I was hit by the sobering realization.”
Ron Garan was in space for 178 days (Carla Cioffi/NASA via Getty Images)
Garan was hit by the realization that our planet – and every living thing on it – is being kept alive by a ‘paper thin layer’.
“I saw an iridescent biosphere teaming with life, I didn’t see an economy, but since our human-made systems treat everything including the very life-support systems of our planet as the […] subsidiary of the global economy, it’s obvious from the vanish point of space that we’re living a lie,” he continued.
The astronaut reflects on the moment as being a ‘light bulb that pops up’ when he realized ‘how interconnected and interdependent we all are’.
Since returning from his mission, Garan ‘continues to work towards a cleaner, safer and more peaceful planet,’ urging others: “We need to move from thinking, economy, society, planet to planet, society, economy. That’s when we’re going to continue our evolutionary process.
“[…] We’re not going to have peace on Earth until we recognize the basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”
Featured Image Credit: Erika Goldring / Contributor/Bettmann / Contributor
Topics: Environment, International Space Station, Science, Space, World News, NASA, Earth, Climate Change
An international group of researchers have issued a warning about the future of our planet after discovering trees and land absorbed almost no carbon last year.
Plants absorb carbon dioxide – it’s one of the lessons everyone learns in science class at an early age, but what happens when that’s no longer true?
How do plants and land usually absorb carbon?
Human activity such as burning coal, oil, or natural gas results in the production of carbon, which in turn can get trapped in the atmosphere and contribute to climate change.
As a result, we’re constantly being encouraged to reduce our carbon footprint, but we do get a helping hand from the world around us.
Oceans, forests, grasslands, and soils on Earth absorb much of the carbon in the atmosphere, helping to regulate the Earth’s climate.
As population, production, and technology increased and improved, humans began to release more emissions – but plants also began to absorb more, thanks to the increased carbon dioxide allowing them to grow faster.
Carbon is released into the atmosphere by burning gas (Andrew Aitchison / In pictures via Getty Images)
How much carbon did plants absorb in 2023?
For thousands of years, the release of carbon been manageable for plants living in a relatively stable climate on Earth.
However, as temperatures increase and agriculture work continues to expand, the scales are being tipped in the wrong direction.
In a joint paper published by researchers from China, the UK, France, and Germany, the team pointed out that 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded, and that forest, plants and soil absorbed almost no carbon.
At New York Climate Week in September, Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, issued a warning about the disturbing direction we are heading in.
“Nature has so far balanced our abuse. This is coming to an end,” he said.
Scientists have warned we cannot rely on natural carbon sinks (Andy Soloman/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Why did plants stop absorbing carbon?
Earlier this year, a paper looking at carbon absorption found that while the total amount of carbon absorbed by forests between 1990 and 2019 was steady, there were variations visible by region.
Stretching across Russia, Scandinavia, Canada and Alaska are what are known as the boreal forests; absorption here was found to be down by more than a third due to climate crisis-related impacts, including fires and clearing the land for timber.
In addition to drought in the Amazon and in parts of the tropics, the hot conditions in the boreal forests are believed to have helped driven the collapse of the carbon sink last year.
Philippe Ciais, an author on the paper and a researcher at the French Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences, commented: “In 2023, the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is very high and this translates into a very, very low absorption by the terrestrial biosphere.
“In the northern hemisphere, where you have more than half of CO2 uptake, we have seen a decline trend in absorption for eight years,” he continued, according to The Guardian. “There is no good reason to believe it will bounce back.”
The boreal forests suffered a huge decline in carbon absorption (OLIVIER MORIN/AFP via Getty Images)
Can the planet recover?
Though the preliminary figures from 2023 are concerning, it’s possible that the breakdown of the carbon sink could be temporary if exposure to droughts and wildfires decreases.
We can also rely on the ocean to soak up some carbon emissions, but this in turn leads to rising sea temperatures.
Professor Andrew Watson, head of Exeter University’s marine and atmospheric science group, commented: “Overall, models agreed that both the land sink and the ocean sink are going to decrease in the future as a result of climate change. But there’s a question of how quickly that will happen.
“The models tend to show this happening rather slowly over the next 100 years or so. This might happen a lot quicker.
“Climate scientists [are] worried about climate change not because of the things that are in the models but the knowledge that the models are missing certain things.”
With our natural carbon sinks in a precarious state, Professor Pierre Friedlingstein, of Exeter University, warned that we ‘shouldn’t rely on natural forests to do the job’.
“We really, really have to tackle the big issue: fossil fuel emissions across all sectors,” he said.
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Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images
Topics: Climate Change, Environment, Nature, Science, Technology
NASA has spoken out about the potential demise of the Earth after the late Stephen Hawking shared a chilling prediction in 2016.
Prior to his death in 2018, the renowned scientist shared his thoughts about how the world could end due to human-caused activities.
Hawking said the human-caused problems contributing to damaging the earth included nuclear war, global warming, and genetically-engineered viruses.
Now, in 2024, global warming is at the top of the agenda from many climate change activists.
From Extinction Rebellion to Greta Thunberg, there are many trying to highlight the danger the planet is and could be in without proper sustainable cautions put in place.
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Bruno Vincent/Getty Images
And worryingly, Hawking’s prediction for when the world could end isn’t too far away, as he suggested it could take place by 2600.
Hawking also said that the advancement of technology would create ‘new ways things can go wrong’, according to the BBC.
And now, NASA has spoken out about the potential demise of the earth, citing Stephen Hawking’s prediction.
While NASA previously told Newsweek that they have cannot confirm the 2600 date, the space administration has expressed similar concerns of Hawking over some global threats.
They said: “For more than 50 years, NASA has studied our home planet, providing information to directly benefit humanity and producing observations that can only be gathered in space that address some of the areas that Hawking mentioned.
“The effects of human-caused global warming are happening now, are irreversible for people alive today, and will worsen as long as humans add greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere.”
NASA/Getty Stock Photo
The warnings from both Hawking and NASA are hard to ignore, though Hawking did previously offer up a glimmer of hope.
He said: “We are not going to stop making progress or reverse it, so we have to recognise the dangers and control them. I’m an optimist, and I believe we can.”
Also taking an optimistic note about the power humanity has to shift this, NASA has said: “The severity of effects caused by climate change will depend on the path of future human activities.”
On its website, NASA also added that ‘if we can reduce emissions, we may avoid some of the worst effects’.
