[exelius]

I actually took an entire class in business school about this exact topic -- "Catastrophic Risk Analysis". Great class, the teacher was a former astronaut (among many other things).

And you're right, you basically can't predict things like this -- but a great many catastrophic risks that can be prevented are ignored because the event seems much less likely than it is due to the scale of the impact being so large as to be unimaginable by many. Climate change is a chief example; but there are plenty others throughout history in business, warfare, and science.