Hawking is Not on the Hose Science Committee

But, you knew that because then there would be at least one sane person on it.

Now, more than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together. We face awesome environmental challenges: climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans.

Together, they are a reminder that we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity. We now have the technology to destroy the planet on which we live, but have not yet developed the ability to escape it. Perhaps in a few hundred years, we will have established human colonies amid the stars, but right now we only have one planet, and we need to work together to protect it.

To do that, we need to break down, not build up, barriers within and between nations. If we are to stand a chance of doing that, the world’s leaders need to acknowledge that they have failed and are failing the many. With resources increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, we are going to have to learn to share far more than at present.

With not only jobs but entire industries disappearing, we must help people to retrain for a new world and support them financially while they do so. If communities and economies cannot cope with current levels of migration, we must do more to encourage global development, as that is the only way that the migratory millions will be persuaded to seek their future at home.

We can do this, I am an enormous optimist for my species; but it will require the elites, from London to Harvard, from Cambridge to Hollywood, to learn the lessons of the past year. To learn above all a measure of humility.

But, go read the beginning, too. 

And are the Republicans in the House listening to pointy-headed intellectuals like Stephen Hawking? Can never remember whether to put a question mark on a rhetorical question. 

A US House Science Committee tweet promoting a climate-change denying article has raised questions about the future of climate science under the next administration.

On Thursday, the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology shared an article from so-called alt-right news and opinion site Breitbart News. According to the article, climate change is driven entirely by weather events like El Niño and La Niña. Reports of extreme temperatures, the author concluded, were simply “propaganda.”

In any case, no. They're getting their science news from Breitbart. We're doomed.