WHY WE FEAR OURSELVES MORE THAN ASTEROIDS
By Robert Roy Britt
Space.Com
Tuesday, March 26, 2002
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/asteroid_fears_020326-1.html
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 scientists were practically laughed at on television by the science
minister of Australia who, like much of the world's public, simply does not
take the threat of asteroids seriously.
The reason is simple: The Dread Factor is not high enough.
Paul Slovic, author of "The Perception of Risk" (Earthscan, 2000), says most
people are far more worried over what humans and technology can do to them
than they are about natural disasters. While terrorism, chemical spills and
nuclear accidents are awarded high "Dread Factor" marks by most people,
asteroids, earthquakes and hurricanes rate low.
Stealth approach
On March 8, a hunk of stone and metal about the size of an 18-story
building, made its closest approach to Earth, passing roughly 298,400 miles
(480,200 kilometers) from the planet, just a bit farther out than the Moon,
but a little too close for comfort for most astronomers.
But what was most disturbing was that the asteroid, later named 2002 EM7,
passed virtually unseen. Not until March 12, when it had moved out of the
glare of the Sun and into the night sky was it seen from Earth.
And it was not alone: On Jan. 7, an asteroid the size of three football
fields came within two lunar distances and was spotted only a month before.
Last October, a smaller asteroid passed by at a similar distance and was
detected just two days prior.
For each nearby asteroid that is spotted, several pass entirely unnoticed,
some closer to us than the Moon, scientists say. One researcher estimates
that each year, 25 asteroids roughly as large as 2002 EM7 whiz by at even
closer distances.
They slip through because of limitations to technology, telescope time, and
funding.
These close brushes illustrate a message that asteroid researchers have
repeatedly tried to hammer home to politicians and the public: The number of
undiscovered asteroids far exceeds the known list, and the list needs to be
filled out before it's too late.
Asteroid 2002 EM7 left a a pretty ominous message on its own: Only a
tremendously expensive new telescopes -- placed outside Earth's orbit so as
to monitor the blind spot created by the Sun -- could guarantee we won't
suffer an unexpected and sudden impact. There would be a flash of brilliant
light in the sky, and seconds later the world would change forever in a way
that would render Sept. 11 an insignificant memory.
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."
Scientists vs. voters
The Dread Factor, or lack of it, can drive political funding decisions.
The U.S. Congress apparently perceived the threat real enough to require
NASA to make asteroid hunting a serious business. The space agency spends
$3.55 million each year searching for and studying asteroids. (Much of that
money goes to space-based research of asteroids that pose no threat.)
Individual search programs provide much of their own institutional funding.
And amateur astronomers around the globe contribute to the effort. Not
everyone, however, sees an urgent need.
The Australian Science Minister Peter McGauran, appearing on his country's
60 Minutes television program March 17, called the effort to find
potentially threatening asteroids "fruitless, unnecessary, self-indulgent"
and promised no funds unless researchers provide a more convincing argument
for the need.
To the consternation of many researchers, there are no telescopes below the
equator devoted to searching southern skies for asteroids. Australia cut
funding to one such effort in 1996.
An ongoing online poll taken in conjunction with the televised program found
overwhelming support -- 91 percent at last count -- for reinstatement of the
funding. But these votes were cast by people who watched an animated
asteroid slam into Earth and listened to leading experts spout frightening
statistics and detail the grim outcomes they say are only a matter of time.
You and most other voters, in Australia and around the world, probably lean
more toward McGauran's sentiment. According to experts in risk assessment
and fear management, McGauran's starkest statement likely reflects the
general public mood: "I lie awake worrying about a lot of other things.
Near-miss asteroids is not one of them."
The average person tends to be much more afraid of industrial accidents, for
example.
As with terrorism, vast sums of money are spent, as Slovic puts it, "to take
small risks of chemical and radioactive pollution and reduce them even
further. We spend a huge amount for every statistical life saved. On the
other hand, if you wanted to get people to spend money on asteroid
protection or earthquake mitigation, it's very difficult, even though the
risk is much greater."
Richard Taylor of the Probability Research Group, a global affiliation of
researchers looking into various science topics, thinks there is a clear
message in the fact that nations spend billions on military defense but zero
scanning our entire Southern Hemisphere flank for asteroids:
"We feel more at danger from man than from Nature," Taylor says.
Not in my lifetime
A decade ago, Slovic and some colleagues conducted a test. They provided a
group of university students with information about the threat from beyond,
explaining that a giant asteroid was thought to have killed off the
dinosaurs, and others would surely hit the planet at statistically
determined intervals. Then they surveyed the students to determine how they
assessed the risk. The students recognized the threat, but chose not to
worry about it.
"They're expectation was, well, it's not going to happen in my lifetime,"
Slovic says.
If astronomers were to announce an imminent collision, asteroids would
suddenly develop a high Dread Factor, Slovic figures. But because none of us
has any direct experience whatsoever with deadly space rocks, "People don't
get worked up about it. There's too many things to worry about."
Scientists find it similarly difficult to generate much public worry for
other potential calamities, like horrible storms, droughts and coastal
flooding that might result over the next century due to climate change, but
which are seen as remote in time.
There is little chance that the complacent attitude of the public, and of
some government officials, will ever elevate to the level of concern
maintained by asteroid experts. As Slovic says, it's common for scientists
and technicians to have a different and more rational understanding of the
risks involved in their area of study.
Fear as a motivator
Many astronomers, it must be noted, believe present asteroid search efforts
are fairly adequate, notwithstanding the lack of a southern telescope. With
time, they say, the worst threats will be rooted out, which is to say the
largest asteroids. And, they argue, the odds are that if any globally
destructive object is found to be on a collision course with Earth, there
will probably be years of warning.
A more vocal group of astronomers and other proponents of increased spending
tend to worry about smaller asteroids that could cause regional devastation.
And they tend to make more frightening statements. Here are just a few that
have come from the mouths of respected experts just in the past 10 days:
"If it were over a populated area, like Atlanta, it would have basically
flattened it," asteroid cataloguer Gareth Williams told CNN in discussing
the potential of asteroid 2002 EM7.
"We live in a cosmic shooting gallery," said Duncan Steel of Salford
University.
"We're talking about a million megaton explosion," said author and physicist
Paul Davies of Macquarie University, in discussing a typical impact on
another recent television program. "That's a million city-bursting bombs all
going off at once."
While such statements are often softened with the reminder that the world
probably won't end tonight -- Davies said in the next breath, "I don't want
people to lie awake at night worrying about it" -- the effort is clear: Get
you and the politicians to act on this threat.
Yet in a world remade by a single day of terrorism, fear may be doomed as a
sales pitch, just as it was in Australia.
Fear is not something that can necessarily be instilled by scientists.
Instead, it tends to be generated by whatever rears its ugly head and shouts
loudest, explains Robert Butterworth, a psychologist at International Trauma
Associates in Los Angeles. Nothing right now, globally speaking, can measure
up to the fear of terrorism and the associated potential of a nuclear
attack.
I can't take it
While there are plenty of things for a 21st Century human to worry about, we
all have our limits.
"In order for us not to have these things on our minds, we use a device
that's been maligned in last few years, which is denial and repression,"
Butterworth says. "We push it back, because we couldn't function if we
didn't."
Asteroids, like a fear of bugs or concern over a missed appointment, can be
lost in a shuffle of frightening thoughts. Some things just aren't as
significant as they seemed last summer.
Butterworth puts it this way: "If we had been walking with a limp and all of
a sudden were shot in the stomach, the limp fades away."
No place has been hit in the stomach like New York City. Psychologist Janice
Yamins, whose patients include victims of the terrorist attacks, says
residents are stunned by their own change in views, such as newfound support
for defense spending "instead of other things that won't help preserve our
world."
Where fear leaves off, anger and revenge step in.
Natural disasters don't generate similar sea changes in philosophy.
Californians suffer tremendously from earthquakes every few years. They pick
up and move on. Southeast coastal residents rebuild time and again after
hurricanes. People there shrug off the threat. Butterworth figures an
asteroid impact would generate similar reactions.
"What do we do, shake our fist at God?" he asks. "Who can we be angry at?"
All this psychology lends support to a notion that has already formed in the
heads of many astronomers: Their call for more funding will fall on a whole
lot of deaf ears until another asteroid makes real noise.
The last serious impact was in 1908, when a rock about the same size as 2002
EM7 exploded above the surface of Siberia. Roughly 1,200 square miles (3,108
square kilometers) of forest were flattened in a remote region known as
Tunguska. There were no known deaths, because almost no one lived there.
The odds of a similar event, which could easily destroy a large city or a
small state with miles of extra destruction to boot, are about 1-in-20 over
the next 50 years.
Knowledge and false alarms
In the past decade, about 500 very large space rocks have been found to
wander near the space shared by Earth's orbit. These so-called Near Earth
Asteroids, all larger than 1 kilometer (0.6 miles), represent about half the
expected total. Millions of smaller asteroids are almost entirely
uncatalogued.
The larger rocks are the ones many scientists fear most. If one hit Earth,
civilization would be pushed to the brink and perhaps beyond. Deaths could
easily be counted in millions, possibly even billions. Many species of
plants and animals would disappear.
As more asteroids are discovered and publicized, public awareness of the
threat grows. But the information is not always accurate.
In a couple of high-profile cases, most prominently four years ago with an
asteroid called 1997 XF11, the public was warned of potentially devastating
impacts before further calculations showed the newly found rocks to be no
threat at all.
Worse, late-night radio programs and various web sites spout all sorts of
unscientific claims of impending asteroid doom, reports that spread like
tsunami radiating outward from an ocean impact. Any reporter who covers the
subject has gotten more than a few frantic e-mails from concerned citizens
who heard this or that and were worried about the planet-destroyer coming
next June, or whenever.
Movies like Armageddon only enhance "wild inaccuracies" in some minds, says
Taylor of the Probability Research Group.
All of this -- the fact, the fiction, the unfounded fears and the genuine
threats that some people don't fear at all -- create a gulf of apathy and
misunderstanding that may well prevent asteroid experts from convincing you
to see the world as they see it.
Several dozen professional astronomers, meanwhile, maintain a nightly vigil
in the Northern Hemisphere, scanning immense and dark skies for tiny points
of light, then struggling to observe often minor movements against the
background of stars in order to determine a trajectory, an ultimate
destination.
Always on their minds: Will this one hit Earth?
"It isn't a matter of if one of these things is going to hit the Earth,"
said Duncan Steel on the 60 Minutes broadcast. "It's just a matter of when.
Either we can expect 23 years warning or six or seven seconds."
For those in the know, the asteroid Dread Factor is off the charts.
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