Appointment in Samara Department: The Path of the Russian Meteorie Charted

You remember the old story about the appointment in Samara: a man tries to outwit Death who makes a threatening gesture to him in a market in Baghdad.  He flees to Samara only to find Death there. it seems the gesture was  only a start of surprise, because, says Death, "I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."

Or, put more crudely, when your number's up, your number's up.

A lot of us had a close call a little while ago when that meteor plunged into the atmosphere over Russia, causing considerable damage.  Scientists apparently have been spending a lot of time reconstructing just what happened. The thought, it would seem, is that there might be some way to avoid a closer call in the future.

But if we're really concerned about saving civilization from catastrophe, wouldn't we be better off putting our resources into getting out of the fossil energy addiction?