It’s July. It should be bright, hot, and full of life. Instead, we’re living in a weird, grey half-light that feels like the set of a low-budget sci-fi movie about the end of days. The air is toxic, and it appears no one’s doing a thing about it. Surprise: it’s Canada’s fault. Again.
Millions of acres are burning, just like they did in 2023 and 2024. The smoke doesn't respect our borders, by staying in Alberta or drifting into Hudson Bay. No, it’s coming straight down into the U.S., blanketing the Midwest and Northeast.
Try taking a photo. Everything’s flat. Dull. Washed out. It’s not cloudy — it’s smoky. The sun’s there somewhere, faint and reddish - dystopian gray . You can't even tell what time it is by the light anymore.
Some people have stopped wearing sunscreen when it’s like this. Don’t. The UV rays still get through. You might not burn as fast or as obviously, but you’re still roasting. You're getting fried under a sky that doesn’t even look good.
I don’t remember this growing up. That’s because it didn’t happen. Not like this. Back then, we didn’t have the kind of progressive forest policies that treated basic fire prevention — like thinning dry brush and clearing deadwood — as somehow ecologically offensive. Now we do. And now we’re paying for it. We’re choking on the consequences of liberal forest mismanagement. And if it’s not fixed, it’s going to keep stealing summers from millions of people who had nothing to do with the policy decisions that got us here.
Let’s be real — if another country were pumping toxic air into our cities for months at a time, year after year, we’d be treating it like a hostile act.
But because it’s Canada — we just cough, cancel our outdoor plans, and hope the wind shifts.
You need to clean up your forests, manage your fires, and stop outsourcing your smoke problem to the U.S. Midwest. I'm not saying “regime change,” but let’s just say some folks around here have started Googling “annexation of Canada.” We're not joking.
My weather app promised sunshine at the lake this morning. What I got instead? Gray. Just gray. Photo below.
Human beings are solar-powered. No sun, no serotonin. No blue skies, no joy. People are cranky. The kids are stuck inside. You can’t breathe right. You can’t feel right. The mood is heavy. And the longer this becomes our “new normal,” the closer we edge toward a geopolitical line no one wants to cross.
This isn’t hyperbole — it’s a mental health issue, an economic issue, a cultural issue. Blue skies are a resource now. And when vital resources disappear, conflicts follow. Ask any historian.
Sunlight is about to become the oil of the 21st century.
The way sunlight should pour in through your windows but doesn’t. The way the air feels heavy even on breezy days. It’s disorienting. And it’s slowly unraveling everything we associate with summer.
This isn’t about one fire season. It’s about what happens when we accept the loss of daylight as just another thing we can’t do anything about.
So no, we’re not sending in troops — but we are done pretending this is okay.
Fix it, Canada. Or we might just start fighting for sunshine.
Eric McKee is a lifetime resident of West Michigan. Married with two energetic boys, he spends his days balancing work with dad life. Also, a firm believer that Almond St. Claus Windmill Cookies are the ultimate snack (and maybe a little too good).
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