Colonize Another Planet Within 100 Years or Face Extinction
Stephen Hawking, 2017: Humanity 'Only Has 100 Years Before We Need to Colonize Another Planet'
Six months after giving humanity 1,000 years, the physicist cut the deadline to a century in a BBC documentary.
What was claimed (paraphrase)
the human race only has 100 years before we need to colonize another planet
— Stephen Hawking (theoretical physicist, University of Cambridge) · said May 2, 2017 · due Within 100 years of 2017
The fine print
Paraphrase: the words are the BBC press release's summary of 'his predictions' for the documentary Stephen Hawking: Expedition New Earth. Hawking's own line, quoted by CNBC: 'With climate change, overdue asteroid strikes, epidemics and population growth, our own planet is increasingly precarious.' In November 2016 he had told the Oxford Union a disaster on Earth 'becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or ten thousand years.' Hawking died in March 2018.