{"id":8245,"date":"2006-08-19T10:17:52","date_gmt":"2006-08-19T14:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8245.html"},"modified":"2006-08-19T10:17:52","modified_gmt":"2006-08-19T14:17:52","slug":"a-possible-threat-vs-an-imminent-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/a-possible-threat-vs-an-imminent-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"A possible threat vs an imminent threat"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.”<\/p>\n

But as reader Hark mentioned via email, Congress’ priorities<\/a> seem out of whack when it comes to the seriousness of global cataclysms.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, “I think the information is not adequate yet for us to do anything meaningful [about global warming].”<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}