Tired of Breathing?

Spectator

By Stephen Tuttle | Aug. 1, 2026

Four local politicians, who shall remain nameless because they do not deserve the attention, recently sent a letter to Ontario’s leaders demanding something be done about their wildfire smoke. The letter even suggested if they don’t, the U.S. will do it ourselves.

Sigh.

During the worst of our smoky days, there were a stunning 800 plus wildfires burning in Canada, including many far away from any way to access them for mitigation or fire prevention, sometimes without roads for tens of miles in any direction.

Our intrepid politicians, always on the lookout for some election year publicity, should have been aware some of that smoke was coming from wildfires in Minnesota and Montana. In fact, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), there are currently 78 major fires in the U.S. consuming 1.6 million acres, including more than 850,000 acres burning in Oregon alone. So far this year, a staggering 41,000 U.S. wildfires have burned more than 4.1 million acres. (The NIFC counts any unplanned non-structure fire requiring suppression efforts, regardless of size, to be a wildfire.) This is a significant increase from historical averages, and the fire season is not yet over.

It isn’t just North America burning. Huge, record wildfires in both France and Spain have forced the evacuation of more than 250,000 residents and are still out of control as this is being written. Already a record fire season in those countries, most of Europe is still at risk.

Here in the U.S., persistent regional droughts continue to be part of the problem. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, fully 38 percent of the country is experiencing some level of drought conditions ranging from moderate, which can be at least partially alleviated with normal rainfall, to extreme, which might take years to resolve.

Lake Mead and Lake Powell are large reservoirs on the Colorado River providing water for some 40 million people in Nevada, California, and Arizona, plus Colorado and parts of New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and 20 indigenous tribal nations. More than 70 percent of that water is used for farming and industry.

But Lake Mead is shrinking, down to just 49 percent of its capacity, and Lake Powell is even worse, down to just 38 percent of its capacity, both historic lows based on Bureau of Reclamation data. Arizona has already had to restrict their share of Colorado River water, and other states will soon have to follow. The Colorado River water allotment, oversubscribed from the beginning and now facing ongoing drought, will force additional water restrictions for all users.

Even Minnesota and Wisconsin, with nearly 27,000 lakes between them, are experiencing moderate drought conditions, and both North and South Dakota are considered to be in extreme drought conditions.

But ground zero for water issues right now could be Corpus Christi, Texas, located on the Gulf of Mexico and home to 300,000 people who are quickly running out of water. Despite the water issue—their aquifer has about a year’s worth of water left unless they get some serious rainfall very soon—they issued more than 3,000 new building permits last year and seem fine with a plastics factory just outside of town using more water than the entire city. They’re either in denial or simply oblivious to reality.

The villain in all this, as we’ve known for decades, is our insatiable need for and use of fossil fuels. There was a brief period when we had politicians who understood and tried to formulate policies that moved us away from those fuels and into far less destructive renewable forms of energy.

That was then, and we now have an administration gung-ho to find, extract, transport, and burn ever more fossil fuels. They will go anywhere to do it.

According to the White House’s own website, President Trump, by proclamation, has reduced the size of previously protected Bear Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments in Utah each by more than a million acres or 90 percent. Why? To allow for “multi-use management” and “mineral extraction.” There was more.

Trump removed protection from 330,000 acres of the Chaco Canyon area of New Mexico with all of its sacred and historical indigenous people’s sites to open it to oil and coal development. He also removed the mineral withdrawal restrictions (mining) from the Ruby Mountain area of Nevada and the Upper Pecos watershed in New Mexico.

And in a particularly grotesque decision, he exempted oil and gas drillers in the Gulf of Mexico from sections of the Endangered Species Act specifically created to protect the critically endangered Rice’s whale, which calls the region home.

This comes on the heels of trying to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing, exploration, and extraction and approving expanded, aggressive logging operations in national forests.

Are we tired of winning, yet? Or just tired of breathing?