Beaten to the Easterbrook Idiot party

The party's here (via Deltoid). Easterbrook calls for more action to prevent asteroid strikes on Earth, based on a cherry-picked expert's ten-percent worst case scenario. Apply the same standard to the climate crisis and I can tell a pretty scary story too.

I actually don't want to pick on Easterbrook too much. However unfortunate it is that major publications think he has something to say about science, he did eventually give in to reality about climate change - in 2006. The people I really want to pick on are the right wingers, because they eat this stuff up about space risk, but don't want to do squat about climate risk. They need to get their risk assessments in order.

Finally, don't throw the baby out even though Easterbrook blinds us. There is a risk from asteroid impact, although that risk is reducing as NASA continues to search and eliminate near-future risks from larger asteroids. Just because Easterbrook says we should do more, that doesn't mean in this case that we should do the opposite. Doing what we're doing is fine.