Phil Plait, in Death From the Skies, puts the odds of being killed by an impact, large or small, at 1 in 700,000. Those odds are really not that low. There are thousands of objects with Earth-crossing orbits, and many of them are large enough to cause significant damage. If we know about a potential impactor well enough in advance, we do have the capability to avoid the collision. Isn't that worth spending some time and effort on?
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