A possible threat vs an imminent threat

August 19, 2006

I can vaguely appreciate the fact that it’s possible — not likely, but possible — that a large asteroid will collide with the earth at some point over the next few millennia. For that matter, I’m pleased there are really smart people looking into it, as evidenced by the International Astronomical Union setting up a special task force this week on threats from “near-Earth objects.”

But as reader Hark mentioned via email, Congress’ priorities seem out of whack when it comes to the seriousness of global cataclysms.

There are no asteroid busters to stop one right now, but scientists believe that one day a defense could be devised, such as using spacecraft to divert a killer comet.

Congress has asked NASA for a plan to comb the cosmos for even smaller, more distant objects, including asteroids just 1 football fields across. The space agency is to catalog their position, speed and course by 2020. Already, there are 103 objects on an “impact risk” watch list.

To be sure, these “killer asteroids” are absolutely worthy of study, and I’m glad Congress is taking the possible threat seriously enough to demand additional information from scientists.

But as Hark noted, lawmakers’ curiosity is rather selective. There’s a remote possibility that an asteroid could collide with the earth, causing a catastrophe. There’s overwhelming evidence that global warming is already underway, causing imminent catastrophes, and possibly contributing to recent ones.

The possible threat gets Congress’ attention, and prompts lawmakers to request more facts. The immediate threat prompts House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) to say, “I think the information is not adequate yet for us to do anything meaningful [about global warming].”

If the GOP’s corporate contributors had a vested interest in asteroids, would Congress even ask NASA to look into the possibility of a collision?

“If the GOP’s corporate contributors had a vested interest in asteroids, would Congress even ask NASA to look into the possibility of a collision?”

There’s a rhetorical question if ever I saw one. Of course not!

I looooove this “I think the information is not adequate yet for us to do anything meaningful.” Has the moron ever had a physical problem himself, where there was a possibility it was either something benign, or possibly something awful, so he went to a doctor to have it dealt with?

If in fact there was not a problem here, but we acted like there was, the end result would still be an improvement over what we have, in the reduction of pollution. And for American companies to develop the useful technologies needed (which will only work with necessary changes in operation and outlook), could regain “the technological edge” for American entrepreneurs and corporations, who are – after all -supposed to be the sorts of people Blunt was elected to help. Right?

Oh,silly me! Doing that would be the intelligent choice, and you can’t put “intelligent” and “Republican” next to each other, since no animal like that ever existed.

  • This is symptomatic of the currently pervasive dualistic mentality, the Them vs Us, Good vs Evil, etc that we’ve noted before. The word ‘Devil’ means dual, if you trace its origins (more obvious in the French ‘diable’). That is, the very entertaining of a concept of separation between entities is diabolical. That is what ‘Devil’ is : duality. It’s right at the beginning of their Bible, but try to get a Christian to see it?

    It’s so much easier for the ruling mindset to externalise a threat than admit that its origin is within themselves.

    It’s devilishly perverse. The only way out is in.

  • It was in a movie, so it must be true. There’d be even more interest if there was oil on those puppies.

  • Threats from without are always much easier to see than threats from within.
    As Pogo would say, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
    Cancer is the cellular equivalent of global warming,…dangerous unchecked growth occuring due to a breakdown of the self regulation.

    For those future scientists of some alien species will wonder at the cause of the aburpt extinction of the human race, I offer this logic.

    A state of denial seems the safest place to be

  • It was in a movie, so it must be true. There’d be even more interest if there was oil on those puppies.

    Besides that awful Bruce Willis movie, there’s some scientific evidence that massive asteroids striking the planet caused dramatic climate changes. But that was millions of years ago, and there are far more pressing issues.

    What surprises me is that a Republican Congress is listening to scientists on this. It’s selective, mostly irrelevant and will have no useful impact on the immediate future … but still it surprises me.

  • I can explain this. I kinda agree that this is a long term threat to our existence as there is enough evidence in the fossil and geological records to indicated that a large asteroid is a evolution reset swtich (end of PreCambria and dinosaur eras.) This space debris should be monitored and programs to develop a response should be in place.

    However, it’s just easier to follow the money. Global warming will cost Repub legislators’s buddies, the oil/power and coal companies, loads of dough whereas asteroids (non Prep H types) will make money for their defense/aerospace contractor buddies like Lockheed and Boeing. When it comes to principles, this particular group of Repubs only believe in $$$$.

    Also, it provides another element of fear to beat over the heads of the electorate. “Don’t elect me and an asteroid will blow you and your family to bits.”

  • Also… An asteroid striking the Earth is sort-of “attractive”: it’ll make a big “booom!” and the effects will be immediate. Like in a film. Global warming? It creeps and it seeps, and we don’t see the changes within 30 seconds. Boooring.

  • To put it simply, large-scale impacts occur about once a century. The Tunguska impact in 1908 was the equivalent of a 10 megaton bomb. An object 10 meters across can release as much as 20 kilotons upon impact. This isn’t pie in the sky thinking, and this isn’t just a Republican project. This is an incremental widening of projects that have been funded by NASA and NSF for the last 25 years. There’s nothing suprising about this at all.

    If you want to wring your hands about a Congress that is do-nothing about global warming, that’s one thing. But picking up on funding for asteroid hunting and harping it as proof of a whacked-out Congress just doesn’t fly. Asteroid hunting is a couple million a year budget outlay. It doesn’t even come close to the effort needed to work on global climate change.

    Let’s have some perspective ourselves, shall we?

  • I can explain this too. An asteroid might kill THEM. Global Warming will kill lots of poor people, but our rich politicians and their families will be able to survive even if it gets really bad (or at least they THINK they will be able to.)

    Asteroids won’t discriminate, and if there’s a God up there, I’d say the capital building might not be a safe place to be when one comes along.

  • Yes, the asteroids need to form a trade association, lease some premises on K Street and hire some Republican lobbyists.

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