The Tunguska event is known to have killed exactly ONE human being,who was thrown several meters and died later.(probably more died though.).
Wars alone in the twentieth century killed more than 100 million people.
Exactly one year ago yesterday Bob Geldorf said:
"Fifty thousand human beings will die this day because of poverty."
The real threats are already on Earth !
My point was that 'if Tunguska happened in Dublin' - presumably, more than one person would die.
As for wars, pestilence, disease etc, tackling those events and reducing the human death associated with them will do nothing to reduce an asteroid impact threat. You could end up stopping all war, pox, pestilence etc only to have the fruits of your labour wiped out in one fell swoop with a 100m asteroid impact...
I see you point, but don't agree with it. By way of example, if we decided that deaths due to aeroplane accidents were so miniscule compared to say war, then we should stop regulating airline safety and 'wasting' that money. Clearly, that is a flawed argument.
Money is being spent on early warning systems for Tsunamis - is that wasted money too?
I think that risk assessment is the key here - the risk is assessed, the money/effort required to minimise or eliminate the risk determined then a judgement call made as to whether or not to spend the money.
And that judgement call is not made by either me or you...
In the case of Pan STARRS, they decided to spend the money because it was worthwhile (it is funded by US tax dollars via NASA, I think).
