I have a big book that lists the news events for each day of the year.  I was browsing through it this afternoon and came across this interesting news story from October 2, 1946:

At a medical symposium at the University of Buffalo, scientists discussed the possibility that cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health.  In fact, they think smoking causes lung cancer.

Men are afflicted with lung cancer six times more often than women.  According to Dr. William Rienkoff, "It will be interesting, now that women are smoking, to see if the much higher ratio of the malignancy of the lung in men is decreased by an increase in the incidence in women."  He believes more women will indeed get pulmonary carcinoma (lung cancer).

The doctors warn that the risk of causing phobias about cancer is less an evil than reacting with "indifference and inertia" to the possible link between smoking and cancer.

I had several reactions as I read this story from more than 60 years ago.  First, as a child who grew up in the 1960's, in a home where smoking was most definitely taboo, I find it pretty amazing that as late as 1946 there could have been any doubt that smoking could cause cancer.  That this discovery was newsworthy certainly illustrates just how far we as a society have come, at least with regard to the risks associated with cigarette smoking.

Secondly, I was struck by the 6:1 ratio of cancer incidence between men and women.  As the article implies, there were very few women smokers prior to the Great Depression.  The number of women who smoke began to increase during the Depression, and rose dramatically during World War II. 

Now the number of women who smoke is almost equal to the number of men who do.  The current ratio is 1.25 : 1.  The cancer rate is much higher as a result.  The ratio of men to women suffering from lung cancer, 6:1 in 1946, is now 1.2 : 1.  

None of these numbers are surprising.  But there was one other aspect of that 1946 article that I found interesting, and it has nothing to do with smoking.  Read that last paragraph in the 1946 article again.  Replace the word "cancer" with the words "global warming", and the word "smoking" with the words "carbon emmissions".  Now read that paragraph again:

The doctors warn that the risk of causing phobias about global warming is less an evil than reacting with "indifference and inertia" to the possible link between carbon emmissions and global warming.

There is a danger in making an analogy about unrelated topics, but in this case, I think it is appropriate.  Just as powerful interests resisted legislation to discourage smoking, there are very powerful interests doing the same with regard to global warming, a threat with far greater potential consequences than even smoking.  Sure, there is dispute as to the severity of the temperature increase, and timeline of that increase.  There are even legitimate differences of opinion about whether anything the United States does can be truly effective at this point.  But don't the catastrophic risks associated with inaction outweigh any reasons for doing nothing?  In 1946 the answer to that question was "Yes".  It still is today.