Authored by Anthony Watts via American Thinker,
Every summer seems to follow the same predictable media script.
Wildfires ignite somewhere in North America. Smoke drifts hundreds or even thousands of miles. Air quality alerts are issued. Television stations fill the screen with hazy skylines. Then, before investigators have even determined how the fires started, headlines begin linking the smoke to climate change.
This year has been no different. As smoke from Canadian wildfires spread across parts of the Midwest and Northeast, much of the news coverage quickly shifted from reporting on the fires to treating them as evidence of a worsening climate crisis. Yet one crucial fact was often left out: many of the fires responsible for the smoke were ignited by lightning, a natural cause that has existed for as long as forests have.
Lightning is not new. Smoke carried by prevailing winds is not new. What is new is the growing tendency to treat every smoky sky as proof of climate change.
That illogical leap simply isn't supported by the evidence.
One of the most striking graphics I've seen tells a story you probably haven't seen in the news. Using data from the European Commission's Global Wildfire Information System, it shows that 2026 has experienced the lowest cumulative burned area across the Americas in at least the past decade.
A second graphic, using the same gl
