Ohio journalists are done hearing politicians blame Canada for the wildfire smoke

NewsDon’t blame Canada: The real reason Ohio’s sky turned apocalyptic this week is here at homeCanadian wildfire smoke hangs over downtown Cleveland on Thursday evening, July 16, 2026. Don't listen to politicians who blame Canada. Blame the politicians for promoting the gas and oil industry that causes climate change.David Petkiewicz, cleveland.comBy Today in Ohiocleveland.comWe all saw how the sky over Ohio looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie this week, which resulted in the seemingly inevitable uneducated claims by anti-science lawmakers: Blame Canada.Today in Ohio podcast hosts said Friday that people who take the time to understand science know the real cause of the wildfire smoke choking the region: climate change denial and pollution right here in America.“Excuse the pun, but that gets me really fired up when people blame Canada, as if huge swaths of forests in northern Ontario spawn spontaneously combusted and they pushed all the air down here just so people could wreck their summer July days,” Johnston said. “But this is a culmination of decades of pollution, which causes climate change.”The wildfires scorching northern Ontario aren’t a random act of nature that Canada unleashed on unsuspecting Americans. They are the predictable, documented result of hotter temperatures, extreme drought conditions, and a warming climate that makes once-manageable fires nearly impossible to contain. Communities in Canada are being evacuated. Families are losing their homes. Firefighters are battling blazes that are twice as bad as 2023 — which, itself, was unprecedented.And it is America’s fault.Co-host Chris Quinn drove that point home with a sharp critique of the political hypocrisy on full display during this crisis. While some officials were busy complaining about smoke drifting across the border, those same leaders have spent years actively dismantling the rules designed to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change in the first place.“We’re doing it to ourselves,” Quinn said. “And yet we have a president and a bunch of other people who deny climate change as a factor, have removed all the rules to try and reduce greenhouse gases. In Ohio, we have a legislature that has falsely deemed natural gas green energy so that we can keep shooting more carbon into the sky. And then these clowns will get up and say Canada can’t get its house in order.”Our health is at stake. As podcast host Courtney Astolfi explained, this wasn’t a “maybe skip your jog today” situation. The air quality plunged so deep into hazardous territory that everyone — not just those with asthma or heart conditions — was advised to stay indoors, run air purifiers, and wear N95 masks if venturing outside. Fine particulate matter from wildfire smoke can travel deep into the lungs and, in some cases, be absorbed directly into the bloodstream.Unlike a bad storm that blows through and leaves behind blue skies, this stuff lingers. A study following the 2023 smoke event linked approximately 4,000 deaths in the United States to the particulate matter. Long-term consequences — including potential cancer risks from breathing in chemicals that have no business being in human lungs — won’t be fully understood for years.Johnston put the larger picture in sobering terms: “100 corporations are linked to over 70 percent of the industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.” Meanwhile, Ohio’s legislature has spent years blocking solar and wind energy development, at the behest of the fossil fuel industry.The wildfire smoke that darkened Ohio’s skies this week isn’t a freak accident. It’s a warning. And as Quinn noted, this kind of event didn’t exist before 2023. Now it’s happened twice in three years, Listen to the discussion here. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ was always a fantasy: Ohio’s fracking waste crisis is hereOhio’s skyrocketing electric bills have a villain, and it’s not the weatherCleveland pastor who championed Mayor Bibb’s Flock cameras was also on Bibb’s campaign payrollListen to full “Today in Ohio” episodes where Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with Editorial Board member Lisa Garvin, Impact Editor Leila Atassi and Content Director Laura Johnston.