Cancer tsumani - This is one warning we can’t ignore

The floods of recent winters, especially as they seem to become more and more severe, have been very difficult for many homeowners and businesses and they have set a by-now annual drama in motion: distraught flood victims berate senior politicians or local authority officials, criticising the fact that they did not act on long-ago warnings that might have saved them from the worst ravages of the deluge.

These heartfelt and often justified criticisms do not always recognise the scale of the escalating problem, the huge almost unmanageable response required or that nearly all of us, in one way or another, have contributed to the situation. Nevertheless, early action, including unpopular planning restrictions that might have led to litigation against planning authorities, might not have prevented the floods but it might have reduced the impact on the lives of those caught in their path. Warnings were ignored, opportunities were missed and now homeowners and businesses must pick up a bill so intimidating that the insurance industry has washed its hands of the crisis. This habit of ignoring warnings offers, it seems, a lesson we refuse to learn.

The World Health Organisation yesterday issued a warning so startling, so challenging in its sweep that it cannot be ignored as flood warnings have been for decades. If it is it will be yet another legacy inflicted on rather than gifted to the future, one that ignored an opportunity — and wasted the time needed — to try to prevent what the WHO has described as a “tidal wave of cancer” sweeping across the world, especially the developing world, in the coming decades.