Where there’s smoke, fire up efforts to make air cleaner

The Marriott Marquis, left, and the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, center, stand above The McCormick Place Convention Center in a veil of haze from Canadian wildfires obscuring the majestic Chicago skyline, as seen from the city’s Bronzeville neighborhood Tuesday. (Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)

After enacting forward-looking climate legislation called the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, Illinois has been slipping behind other states in taking the next step. The state’s lapse surely contributed to Chicago having the worst air quality in the world among major cities on Tuesday, as ranked by the World Air Quality Index.

Much of the city’s air quality problems came from Canada as winds blew in smoke from wildfires. But Illinois has contributed to the problem by doing too little to transition to electric vehicles, especially away from large vehicles that burn fossil fuels.