BOULDER, Colo. -- Earth's chances of being hit by a comet or asteroid in the future is a numbers game. But it's also an odds-on cosmic certainty. Yet societys ability to deal with potentially horrific conditions stirred up by an impact is haphazard and unbalanced.

What the world needs now is to universally adopt the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared.

Thats the view of a team of asteroid researchers issuing a white paper on how the civilized globe can best deal with the asteroid/comet impact hazard in a proactive, responsible manner.

Authors of the study, The Comet/Asteroid Impact Hazard -- A Systems Approach, are Clark Chapman and Daniel Durda of the Office of Space Studies here at the Southwest Research Institute, along with space engineer Robert Gold of The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

We recommend crafting, adoption and implementation of improved procedures for informing the broader society about the impact hazard.

While underscoring that the chances of Earth being on the receiving end of a comet or asteroid is a very low probability the researchers contend, should an impact happen, there is potential for public panic, given the possibility of disruption and destruction on a global scale.

"It wasnt clear to us when we began this study that anybody has thought this through at all," Clark Chapman told SPACE.com. "Conceivably, we could have very short notice of an impact, but its more likely to be years or decades of warning. But once astronomers find an Earth-impacting object, it gets confirmed and registered -- then what?" he said.

The researchers found that very little attention has been paid, in essence, to orchestrating a civil defense plan in the event of a head-on collision with a comet or asteroid. An unexpected impact by a 1.2-mile (2-kilometer) diameter object might well destroy agriculture in both hemispheres by saturating the atmosphere with dust and debris that block out the Sun. That would lead to crop failures and mass starvation from which no nation would be immune.

"We recommend crafting, adoption and implementation of improved procedures for informing the broader society about the impact hazard, notifying the public and relevant officials/agencies about an impact prediction, and putting in place [in advance of such predictions] procedures for coordination among relevant agencies and countries," the paper suggests.

Chapman said the most likely international disaster that would result from an impact is a gigantic tsunami. A wall of water swamping islands and coastal communities would result from an ocean impact by an object a few hundred meters (yards) in size, he said.

"There is a 1-percent chance of something like that happening in the next century," Chapman said. But those organizations and individuals responsible for warning, or heeding warnings, about earthquake-generated tsunamis are generally unaware of impact-induced tsunamis, he said.

Satellites in geosynchronous orbit could be lost to dust impacts, even shorted out due to plasma arcing caused by energized particles wreaking havoc with microelectronic circuitry. That could knock out, or severely disrupt global communications, the researchers contend.

There is a bizarre bright side to a comet or asteroid impact when compared to nuclear warfare.

After an "all clear" is given following a cosmic impact, exposure to radioactivity is not among the various long-lasting consequences.

The natural hazards community and experts in risk assessment, meteorological storms, earthquakes, climate change and other relevant areas need to appreciate the ramifications of an asteroid or comet impact, Chapman said. In addition, emergency preparedness and law enforcement officials, along with chains of command in the military need to bone up on the basics of impact hazard, he said.

"Its not like we need to establish a new federal agency for impact hazard preparedness," Chapman said. But what is needed is to carry out a broad, cross-disciplinary and multi-agency look at how important this impact hazard is, as well as how should we prepare to deal with it, he said.

Chapman highlighted one final observation in the white paper: "The dinosaurs could not evaluate and mitigate the natural forces that exterminated them, but human beings have the intelligence to do so.