The astoroid was sent here by Halliburton, which is secretly run by a small but greedy race of space aliens who later returned to drill the oil the dinosaurs produced.
On a slightly more serious note:
Burning soft coal could stem global warming, I suspect, if things actually did get out of hand. Actually, though, I think third world countries already are burning a lot of soft coal.
You know what .....don't be too surprised if the next James Bond movie has a Halliburton clone being the baddie's evil company. I wouldn't be surprised at all.