Stephen Hawking: Human race is in danger, and it's our fault

Science superstar Stephen Hawking says humanity is inching closer to demise, and we are to blame.

The physicist made the comments during the annual BBC Reith lecture, and said it’s inevitable that in the next “thousand or ten thousand years,” a disaster will strike the planet.

"By that time we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race,” he said during the BBC lecture.

Hawking cautioned that disasters engineered by humans, including climate change, nuclear war and genetically engineered viruses, could be the downfall of life as we know it on Earth. With advancements in technology come "new ways things can go wrong," Hawking said.

"However, we will not establish self-sustaining colonies in space for at least the next hundred years, so we have to be very careful in this period," Hawking said.

Hawking was diagnosed with a motor neuron disease when he was 21, and has been confined to a wheelchair for decades. The world-renowned scientist communicates with the help of a speech synthesizer.

This isn’t the first time that Hawking has voiced concern. In the past, he warned that artificial intelligence could wipe out the human race.

Despite the threat of impending disaster, Hawking’s says people will continue to be resourceful.

"We are not going to stop making progress, or reverse it, so we have to recognize the dangers and control them. I'm an optimist, and I believe we can,"  he said.

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