Near-Earth objects: risk, policies and actions

Frascati 20 January 2003

Notes for after-dinner talk to the OECD Global Science Forum workshop: Near-Earth objects: risk, policies and actions

1. My credentials are no more than membership of the British Government Task Force on Potentially Hazardous Near Earth Objects, whose Report was published in September 2000. The other members were Harry Atkinson (Chairman), and David Williams (then President of the Royal Astronomical Society). The Government gave a preliminary response in February 2001, and a more detailed one on 1 January 2002.

2. You have already had a full day looking at the hazards from Near Earth Objects, how they are regarded by the public in at least some OECD countries, and what might be done about them. The nub of the problem was stated by the European Space Science Committee and the Ministers of the European Space Agency:

"The threat posed to humanity by NEO impacts is real and similar in character to other risks of low probability but high consequence…"

The job of the Task Force was to see how Britain might best contribute to international efforts to cope with this threat, to assess the risks, and to advise on future actions. At least in part that is why we are all here tonight.

3. What then can an amateur contribute? As someone who has long been at the interface between science and the political process, I have some observations:

• The reason why I was asked to join the Task Force was, I think, because of my long standing interest not only in this subject (I ran a lecture series on it at Green College Oxford a few years ago), but also in the various other wild cards affecting human history and modern society, for example the occasional pandemics which can affect all forms of life, and climate change, whether natural or human induced; and because of my interest in communicating scientific problems to the public (as in my recent editorial in Science on climate change).
• Simultaneously we
  • need to avoid sensationalism and creating needless alarm. The fate of those who cry Wolf too early and too often is well known.
  • need to lay out the facts in calm and persuasive fashion if we are to muster public sympathy and support for programmes to determine the character of the threat, and consider how best to cope with it.
  • need to persuade people, in particular our leaders, that the whole subject is not a bit of a joke. As I once told a British Prime Minister, we have to move from the giggle to the goggle factor.
  • need to establish impacts from space as one of the abiding factors in history
• Chicxulub is now well established, but Tunguska so far less so
• There is a continuing hail of objects from space, including the one striking Lake Tagish in 2000
• We need to establish impacts as a factor for the future. Here ignorance is the main problem, particularly about objects of less than 1 km. in diameter. Here also we must contend with the lack of any coordinated system of research and of international institutions to help cope with the problem.

4. For a world wide problem world wide institutions are of particular importance. No United Nations body or agency can at present be held to represent the global interest in this respect. The UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space is too narrowly focused, and UNESCO with its brief on science in general is too wide. Although the Task Force was reluctant to suggest new institutions, we thought that something on the lines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change seemed most nearly to meet the requirement, with its three main working groups (one on science, one on impacts, and one on how to cope).

The OECD meeting today is an important step forward. Obviously the industrial countries of the world have a particular responsibility, not least because without them little or nothing could be done. But I think it would be a mistake if the OECD were to be the only forum. The issues involve the whole world, and all countries should have the opportunity to contribute and be consulted.

5. So far the United States is doing far more than the rest of the world put together. For the Task Force our visit to the United States was something of a revelation, ranging from the work we saw being done by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to that in progress at the Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona. We were particularly impressed by what we heard at the Pentagon, but I did have to remind our hosts in Congress that Chesapeake Bay was itself a relic of a major impact.

6. What about the Europeans? With encouragement from our American friends, we recommended that the Europeans should do more to bring their own work together and coordinate it with that of the United States and others in complementary fashion.

7. Finally came the national aspects. For our own government we recommended that it should appoint a single Department, carrying real bureaucratic weight, to take the lead on coordination and conduct of policy. Obviously the problems would reach across the whole of the government apparatus, covering national security, emergency procedures, financial support and the work of the various research councils. We also recommended the creation of a National Near Earth Object Information Centre for dispensing reliable information to the public. We believed - and still believe - that it should be independent from the government to enjoy full public confidence.

An abiding and always tricky problem is judgement of priorities. How does expenditure on schools and hospitals rate against on expenditure on telescopes and space technology generally? Defence against hazards from nature does not always have to be measured against threats from human enemies. But often these choices are artificial. The issues turn out to be aspects of each other, and priorities among them are subjective. In assessing risks the Task Force tried to make them less so. At least we must find out a lot more than we now know.

8. Ignorance is not bliss. In January 1995 the US Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics published a report containing the following passage:

"If some day an asteroid does strike the Earth, killing not only the human race but millions of other species as well, and we could have prevented it but did not because of indecision, unbalanced priorities, imprecise risk definition and incomplete planning, then it would be the greatest abdication in all of human history not to use our gift of rational intellect and conscience to shepherd our own survival and that of all life on Earth."

No one could have put the point better. That is why I hope specific actions will follow this meeting.