Clearing Chicago’s skies

The orange haze that has blanketed the Chicago skyline over recent summers is a stark reminder that climate disasters do not carry passports. Record-breaking wildfires across Canada have turned our shared air into a seasonal public health crisis, triggering frequent air quality alerts and aggravating health conditions for thousands of local residents.

This cross-border crisis presents a powerful, urgent opportunity for shared American action. The science is simple. A warming planet dries out our landscapes, stretching fire seasons into year-round threats.

We are not helpless spectators. By aggressively cutting carbon emissions right here in the U.S., we can directly prevent these wildfires from getting worse on both sides of the border. Shifting rapidly toward clean energy and tightening emission standards directly cools the global climate engine driving these mega-fires.

Without urgent action to curb rising temperatures, wildfires will continue to spiral out of control. The catastrophic summers we endure today will become the norm tomorrow and a future that nobody wants to live in.

Call or email your representatives and urge support for clean energy subsidies, carbon pricing and stricter industrial emission limits.

Joseph Reitmeyer, Mount Prospect