<http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/asteroid_fears_020326-1.html>
Why We Fear Ourselves More than Asteroids By Robert Roy Britt space.com 26 March 2002 In the past six months, while the world focused on the continuing threat of global terrorism, as many as a dozen or more asteroids sneaked up on the Earth and zoomed by at distances just beyond the Moon's orbit and closer. Most were never noticed. Earlier this month, astronomers did spot one. Four days after it flew by. In discussing these events, experts describe a planet vulnerable to an unexpected attack that could, in an instant, wipe out a city or even destroy civilization. Some researchers go so far as to view the asteroid threat as an "international emergency situation," as Andy Smith of the Safety Research Institute in Albuquerque New Mexico said last week. Yet as billions upon billions of dollars are spent to provide insurance against terrorism, astronomers were foiled in a recent attempt to encourage Australia to invest a comparatively paltry $1 million to scan the mostly unsurveyed southern skies for killer space rocks. The reason is simple: The Dread Factor is not high enough. Full story here: <http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/asteroid_fears_020326-1.html> From the article: Dread Factor vs. reality of risk Scientists develop asteroid risk statistics by estimating the total number of objects that exist and by studying evidence of past encounters -- big holes in the ground called impact craters. From these clues, they say your chances of death by asteroid are about the same as dying in a plane crash, roughly 1-in-20,000 during your lifetime. You're more liable to be electrocuted to death (1-in-5000 chance), succumb to skin cancer or be killed in a car crash. Yet asteroids pose more risk than tornadoes (1-in-60,000 chance), rattlesnake bites or food poisoning. If Earth is hit, you could die by direct impact and vaporization. Or you might be killed in an associated earthquake or volcanic eruption as the planet's bell is rung like never before in recorded history. Or perhaps like countless lesser species, you'll die a slow, agonizing death of starvation as the world's food supply dwindles in the face of reduced sunlight caused by a global debris cloud. Yet if you're like most people, you are not all that worried, according to sociologists and psychiatrists who study these things. Slovic, the author, also works at Decision Research, an organization in Oregon that advises industry and government about risk. He says we do not base our fears on statistics. Instead, each of us develops our own personal Dread Factor for various frightening scenarios based on personal experience, knowledge and, more important, our sense of the situation. Emotion has replaced instinct as a major risk-assessment tool for modern humans, who face myriad dangers, none of which involve sneaking up on woolly mammoths from behind a tree. "It is more of a gut feeling," Slovic says. "Does it worry me? Does it scare me? Does it make me uneasy?" Cars are low on most individuals' Dread Factor lists, even though the average American stands about a 1-in-100 or 1-in-200 chance of dying in an automobile. "We don't dread cars," Slovic says. "Things that cause cancer are high on the Dread Factor."
