Personally I don’t have any idea what the probabilities of an Yellowstone eruption would be. It may happen tomorrow. On the other hand, it may not happen for another million years. But there are lots of events potentially as catastrophic as a supervolcano eruption. A city-sized rock from space. Look at the moon and what hit it; without the weathering the craters are still there.

So, given the existence of not one, but many nearly extinction-level events, why don’t we apply the “precautionary principle” which often used as an argument for global warming? Maybe because global warming is better racket, but not because it is any more immediate or certain than a super-catastrophe.

While we can guard against specific threats against asteroids, weather change, volcanoes, nuclear war, etc maybe the best overall insurance against extinction is space colonization technology. Diversification. I think the most dangerous idea ever put forward is the idea that outer space is some kind of ecological theme park that ought to be kept free from human pollution.

If our only defense against the dangers of nature is science and technology, then it follows that the greatest long term danger to human existence is political correctness.