The Summer Thieves

Screenshot of air quality map: Accuweather, July 19, 2026

In the Great Lakes region, and in much of North America, summer is a brief and treasured season. We pack in a lot in twelve or so weeks. While we talk about the lazy days of summer, there is almost a frenzy of festivals, fairs, sports events, outdoor concerts and theater, “up north” trips, etc. If you are one those folks who by mid-March is dreaming of the joys of summer, you’re not alone.

However, in the last few years, many of those precious summer days have been snatched away by extreme weather, such as violent thunderstorms, tornadoes, and extreme heat, or the smoke from large wildfires. Our forests are burning for many reasons, including the increased “fuel” of extensive die-offs from invasive species such as the spruce budworm or blow-downs from intense storms. Add to that lightning strikes from those storms, combined with the stresses from extended drought and extreme heat.

These are symptoms of multiple environmental stressors, but the underlying causes are linked to our rapidly changing climate. Now, before anyone leaps to the “but forest fires are natural” or “we need better forest management,” or “the climate has been changing for thousands of years,” we can say “sure,” but those are distractions from the challenge at hand, and what we know about cumulative changes in our atmosphere over the course of the industrial age. But I’m not writing to persuade any of the doubters that human-caused climate disruption is happening in ways that science has predicted for several decades, because if they have rationalized a different explanation, the increasingly carbon-dense atmosphere will do what it does without their opinion anyway.

Rather, the heat and smoke of summer in the northern hemisphere (as well as catastrophic floods in many places) should raise yet another clarion call for doing something, and the United States needs to own its role as one of the major global sources of carbon emissions as well as methane. Instead, we’ve witnessed the embarrassing response from a handful of members of congress, and the polluter-in-chief along the lines of “Canada has to make this stop or we’ll stamp our feet, call you names and punish you!”

Can we say with some confidence that flinging statements of umbrage and threatened tariffs will not do a single thing to help reduce carbon loading, stationary atmospheric heat domes, drought, and damaging invasive species? I suspect it also won’t do a thing to help those whose lives have been at risk in fighting these fires, or the Namaygoosisagagun First Nation, in Collins, Ontario, whose entire community is now ashes, and other evacuees. It won’t help the outfitters and resort owners, the North Shore communities and the local businesses that depend on the tourism economy. And lest we are tempted to think this is just a local or regional problem, let us remember that catastrophic fires are  burning in many places in the U.S., Canada, and around the world.

Nobody is a winner in these smoke-choking days. No one should have to choose between attending an outdoor event or significantly increasing their risk of heart or respiratory illness. (Maybe we should include an N-95 mask in those time capsules that communities are using to commemorate the U.S. 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.) I would argue that our “pursuit of happiness” will be more likely to succeed in a nation that uses its capacity to lead on helping sustain a livable planet than one whose leaders prefer to reap short-term wealth and create long-term disasters.

I’m thinking about this, on a day that finds us indoors with the windows tightly shut because of the purple air alert. In the relative safety of filtered indoor air, we are unpacking and putting away all of the unused gear and food for the camping trip that we cancelled yesterday. We had dreams of sitting on the shores of a wilderness lake tonight and watching the moon rise. While it is a big disappointment, it is nothing compared to the impact on those grappling with the direct effects of the fires and their aftermath.

Keep talking about climate change, and writing those letters and doing what you can to reduce climate change emissions, but note in your conversations that multiple years of elevated temperatures and massive fires haven’t just “happened.” Too many summer days have been stolen by the fossil fuel corporations and the politicians who were warned many times about the long-term impacts of greenhouse-gas pollution, and who have chosen instead to obfuscate, oppose, and delay action.

They take their profits and then, on the corporate fainting couches, claim that the cost of addressing climate action is too high. Instead, they load the costs into the atmosphere we all share, and on the backs of small businesses and rural communities, our health and recreation, and the loons and the boreal forest. Trump said the losses in the U.S. from all the smoke closures, etc. were in the billions. Apparently,  even “hoaxes” can cost the public.

As we’ve learned from other failures in pollution prevention, the costs of clean-up, restoration, and mitigation are almost always much more expensive than the costs of prevention, and typically borne by the public. Here we go again.

In the U.S. we’re in a big election year. Vote wisely.

—Jane Elder

GLEN welcomes diverse perspectives on Great Lakes protection. Please note that the views in our posts are those of the author. To learn more about GLEN please visit our website at https://www.greatlakesecoregion.org/.