What’s Venus got to do with global warming? Everything.  Venus is about 1/3 closer to the Sun than the earth.  Yet the mean surface temperature of Venus is about 452 degrees C (894 degrees F), while the mean temperature of earth is about 14.5 degrees C (59 degrees F).  Most of this radical difference in temperature is attributed to the effects of the thick atmosphere of Venus, not its distance from the sun.

For comparison, look at Mercury.  At less than half the distance of Venus, and about 1/3 the distance of the Earth from the Sun, the planet Mercury’s mean surface temperature is about 179 degrees C (354 degrees F).  So while Mercury is much closer to the sun than Venus (less than half the distance), it is much cooler (roughly 40% as hot).

For a sobering assessment of humankind’s unwitting assault on the climate of earth one need only check in with the reknowned cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, who has publicly expressed fears that the earth may heat up like Venus due to our continued burning of fossil fuels in our past patterns.

We must individually and collectively change what we do, or suffer the consequences.