Auchtoon!

My wife and I were on vacation in the UP last week. On Sunday, we were heading east on US-2 nearing St. Ignace. Typically on a nice summer day, it’s easy to get peaks of the bridge on the approach. But even though it wasn’t the worst of the bad air days last week, there was no sign of the Mighty Mac through the haze. A little unsettling. (But then, actually being on the bridge 200 feet above open water is also somewhat unsettling.)

What is infinitely more unsettling is the wholesale rejection of the science behind that haze. Scientists and climate experts uniformly tell us that climate change brought about by fossil fuel usage is a root cause of the Canadian wildfires. Many people — including those in leadership positions in the federal government — find this inconvenient, unacceptable, or (by their own declaration) fake news. But that doesn’t stop it from being true.

I’m on vacation this week, so I’m trying to stay focused on this beautiful (depending on your heat tolerance) Michigan summer. That’s probably just as well because the whole tariff and trade situation, particularly with the automobile industry, is so volatile and so complex, it really doesn’t lend itself to a hot take. But I do feel safe in saying that the only folks I imagine being happy about the situation are the ones receiving payments on those $1,000-per-month-for-84-months auto loans.