Stephen Hawking scaremongering in China.
He said he was afraid that Earth “might end up like Venus, at 250 degrees centigrade and raining sulfuric acid.”
I’m no brilliant astrophysicist, but wouldn’t Venus’s proximity to the sun be the leading cause of that sort of thing rather than the chlorofluorocarbons in my can of Aquanet?
Not So Fast 
Your “re-education” is not going very well, is it?
The sun has nothing to with the temperature of the planets! It all has to do with how much CO2 gets pumped into the atmosphere!
Mercury would’ve been beautiful if Bush had signed Kyoto!
I got left behind. I blame Bush.
Well I wouldn’t go so far as saying the sun has nothing to do with the temperature of the planets. It plays a crucial role in planet temps (distance from and angle of incidence are but two factors) but the CO2 is the primary reason venus is so hot.
So, move Venus out to Earth’s orbit and it would still be 400 some odd degrees?
Short answer: yes. Now distance does come slightly into play. But the CO2 is much more important as well as inclination. For instance, (in the northern heisphere) we are slightly closer to the sun during the winter (because of the elliptical orbit) so it is because of our inclination that it is colder, not the distance. So there are a lot of factors. But roughly speaking the CO2 content causes the heat. It is like a runaway greenhouse.
I hate it when greenhouses run away.
That is why I never put wheels on mine.