What preparing for an asteroid strike teaches us about climate change

When it comes to natural disasters, most are impossible to predict more than a few months or even days ahead of time – you can’t say “an earthquake is going to hit in two years, let’s prepare”. However, one of the few for which we can be truly ready is an asteroid strike.

While nobody has found any large asteroids on a collision course with Earth yet, scientists, engineers and policy-makers are working on planetary defence plans for when we do. Disaster-averting techniques are already being tested, like giving asteroids a bump to change their trajectory, as NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission did successfully in 2022.

One surprisingly useful tool in the planetary defence tool belt is running role-playing games, which can reveal the stumbling blocks that could scupper even the best laid plans. Paul Chodas at NASA, who runs some of these exercises, says they uncover problems we never would have thought of otherwise. In our feature, “If an asteroid were heading towards Earth, could you avert disaster?”, you can try such a game for yourself.

It should come as no surprise that factors like an incoming space rock’s size and how early we spot it play a big role in whether we will successfully avoid disaster, but so too does our ability to collaborate on a global scale and effectively communicate the risks of different options. These are important lessons that go beyond just defending ourselves against asteroids.

Compared with other existential threats, the risks from an asteroid heading our way are relatively small. Climate change is already happening. Pandemics have occurred regularly throughout human history – and are made more likely by our warming planet. We know these come with technical challenges, like the development and rollout of green technologies, but the social ones are just as important.

It is only with effective global collaboration and communication that humanity can tackle its biggest problems. That is just as true in an asteroid role-playing game as it is in reality.