Just a few days before Tehran and Washington signed a now-defunct ceasefire agreement, local media in Iran reported that 25 goitered gazelles were killed in U.S. airstrikes on Kharg Island in the northern Persian Gulf. The small coral island is a key terminal for Iran’s oil exports and its unique wildlife includes white-headed seagulls, hawksbill sea turtles, and ospreys. It also hosts the ruins…
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As wildfires raged across Canada on Thursday, sending dangerous smoke across the border into major US cities, climate advocates called for accountability for the fossil fuel industry, which knew for decades that its products were largely responsible for the climate crisis, yet chose to push climate denial instead. While fire is a natural part of the lifecycle of Canada’s boreal forests…
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This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on July 16, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
As wildfires raged across Canada on Thursday, sending dangerous smoke across the border into major US cities, climate advocates called for accountability for the fossil fuel industry, which knew for decades that its products were largely responsible for the climate crisis, yet chose to push climate denial instead.
While fire is a natural part of the lifecycle of Canada’s boreal forests, the heating of the atmosphere due to the burning of oil, gas, and coal has made fires more frequent and extreme.
“We need Nuremberg trials for Big Oil,” the youth-led Sunrise Movement wrote on social media in response to the fires.
We need Nuremberg trials for Big Oil. https://t.co/nHhbDXB06X— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) July 16, 2026
Climate Defiance agreed, posting, “Nuremberg-style trials are in order for the fossil fuel executives who knew what they were doing to our children’s futures and did anyway.”
There were 884 fires burning in Canada on Thursday, with 124 out of control, according to the country’s national wildland fire summary. Over 100 fires were raging in Ontario alone, where they have forced the evacuation of at least 15 rural communities; destroyed homes in the Indigenous community of Collins First Nation, or Namaygoosisagagun; and polluted the skies over parts of the upper Midwest and Northeastern US.
As of Thursday evening Eastern time, the four cities with the worst air quality in the world were Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Toronto, according to IQAir.
People have shared dramatic footage of the fires on social media. One video shows a train moving through a blaze near Armstrong, Ontario. Thankfully, all crew members were evacuated safely, The Guardian reported.
This is near Armstrong, Ontario. When will the Canadian National Railway Company make a statement about this incident?
The biggest game in soccer is set for Sunday, when Argentina and Spain will meet in the World Cup final, held just outside of New York City. There’s just one problem — wildfire smoke now threatens the match and FIFA, the sport’s governing body, doesn’t appear to have any plan in place to protect player or fan health. Wildfire smoke blowing from Canada has blanketed large swaths of the…
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Republican members of Congress are introducing legislation to impose sanctions on Canada over the fact that the smoke from wildfires has spread to the U.S. — an absurd effort to blame Canadian officials for the spread of the smoke without acknowledging the role of the climate crisis in supercharging the fires. In a statement, Sen. Bernie Moreno’s (R-Ohio) office says he blames Canada and…
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A ballot measure written by a conservative nonprofit could amend the Colorado Constitution to enshrine fossil fuel companies’ right to sell methane gas and possibly force communities that have tried to eliminate gas appliances from new construction to back away from those efforts. Advance Colorado, which wrote the measure and led the effort to gather enough signatures to add the measure to…
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