Bigger Danger Than We Might Think?

During my flight to CA last week, I picked up the latest issue of The Atlantic to read because of this article. Gregg Easterbrook is about the only writer I read on ESPN's Page 2, so I was interested in this.

It seems that our chances of being nailed by a space rock are a lot bigger than we think, and the consequences could be devastating. I recall seeing a special on the Tunguska Event, and Easterbrook argues that if that occurred over a major populated area...well, it'd be pretty bad. I don't think the chances of that are as high, however, as just a big mass slamming into land and kicking up a buttload of dust that would take a few years to settle.

While everyone whines and frets about "global warming", the danger from global cooling is far greater. Right now, just one or two shortened growing seasons would wreak havoc on the world's food supply. Heck, a couple of bad growing seasons and human mismanagement (ethanol subsidies) have led to food shortages in the poorer countries right now! The scary thing is we don't even need a sudden, large scale catastrophic event to do something like this -
a slightly decreased solar output, or even a few volcanic eruptions would suffice in doing some damage to the world's population.

If you ask me, finding some way to make our food supply more robust to this kind of a disruption is probably going to be one of the bigger long term challenges, after issues like dealing with terrorism and finding a renewable energy supply. I just hope we're ready, and it's not something that hits us full in the face or sneaks up on us.