Catch up on the environmental current events of 2026. Get news on sustainable communities, scientific findings, the push toward net-zero carbon emissions, and more.
Coal Country Charts a New Path
By Kale Roberts
Politicians have spent the past two decades telling a flip-flopping story about coal’s prospects as an energy source for the U.S. “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them,” one president said in 2008.
“Coal will last for 1,000 years in this country,” said a soon-to-be president in 2017. And yet another, five years later, asserted, “No one is building new coal plants, because they can’t rely on it.” (This one recommended coal miners learn to code.) These competing narratives paint communities whose economies have historically relied on the mining, refining, or burning of coal as either derelict bastions of a bygone era, or poised for a “clean, beautiful” resurgence (the president’s message in 2025).
Political rhetoric aside, the economic reality of coal over the past 20 years is consistent: The U.S. consumes 64 percent less coal than at its peak in 2007. More than 300 coal plants have closed since then, and another 173 have plans to retire by 2030. Today, it costs a median of $120 to produce a megawatt-hour of electricity from coal. Compare that with $78 for fracked gas or less than $63 for either wind or solar, and coal simply can’t compete in most states. Faced with inevitable plant closures, coal towns from Appalachia to the mountain West are taking steps to diversify their economies using renewable energy – and writing their own stories in the process.
Hayden, Colorado, is one coal town amid an energy transition. Since its opening in 1965, coal-burning Hayden Generating Station and the Twentymile Mine feeding it have employed hundreds of the town’s roughly 2,000 residents. For years, property taxes from coal ventures provided half the budget for schools and the fire district. So, when Xcel Energy, the plant’s owner, announced it would close the Hayden plant by 2028, town leaders faced an existential moment.
An overreliance on a single source of revenue is both destabilizing and common for the 372 counties – roughly 10 percent of the U.S. – that host a coal plant or mine, says Heidi Binko, who founded the Just Transition Fund in 2015 to help coal-dominant communities diversify their economies. “The direct job loss is an important impact [when a plant closes] – but then you have indirect jobs and erosion of the tax base,” explains Binko, who witnessed these impacts firsthand growing up in a coal-dependent town. “For every lost miner, you also lose two or three more jobs in the local community and can see as much as an 80% reduction in tax revenue.”
Hayden found a partial solution in geothermal energy. The town’s geothermal-heated Northwest Colorado Business District broke ground on the first 58 of its planned 117 acres in 2024. It’s since attracted big-name companies, including Amazon, which are lured by the stable energy rates geothermal can provide. Tenants won’t have a gas hookup, and the district is expected to offer heating and cooling at costs 40 percent lower than fossil-fueled systems.
Also known as “ground-source heat pumps,” geothermal heating and cooling systems work by circulating fluid through looping pipes placed underground below the frost line. The system draws on the Earth’s constant subterranean temperatures (about 55 to 60 degrees F in many places) to absorb heat in winter and offload it in summer – achieving an astonishing 400 percent efficiency or better.
“Geothermal is one renewable the federal government is supportive of,” says Wade Buchanan, director of Colorado’s Office of Just Transition. Unlike for solar and wind, federal geothermal tax credits have continued under the current administration. This makes going geo particularly attractive in Colorado, where Buchanan’s office supports coal communities to diversify their economies, and the Colorado Energy Office has invested more than $30.3 million to support 70 local geothermal projects to date.
Thirteen state energy offices, including Colorado’s, are part of a Geothermal Power Accelerator, which may help spread lessons from Hayden to more coal-transition towns. Binko is hopeful but cautions against trading one energy “mono-economy” for another, advising coal towns to consider boosting tourism, outdoor recreation, agriculture, tech, or health care alongside renewables. Buchanan agrees, saying the transition is measured in the holistic health of local economies. “Disruption is happening, so how can we ensure communities are not left behind?” he says. “We have enough ghost towns already.”
Roundup Retracted: Glyphosate Study Gets Pulled
By Darby Stipe
A study published 25 years ago in the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology concluded glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, is safe. But late last year, the journal’s editors retracted the study because of ethical concerns when uncovered emails indicated that employees of Monsanto, the original manufacturer of glyphosate, provided text and data for the study. Bayer, which purchased Monsanto in 2018, says the company’s involvement was disclosed in the study’s acknowledgments.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) maintains that glyphosate is safe for widespread use, but an updated human health-risk assessment is due from the agency in 2026. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer determined glyphosate to be “probably carcinogenic” to humans. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from Bayer this spring after a jury from Missouri awarded $1.25 million to a man who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after using Roundup. Bayer – which has faced almost 200,000 claims that its products have caused people to develop cancer and paid out $11 billion in settlements so far – contends it’s following federal labeling regulations and shouldn’t be held liable.
New ‘Forever Chemicals’ Approved
By Darby Stipe
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved new controversial pesticides, including cyclobutrifluram and isocycloseram, for use on agricultural crops, such as broccoli, lettuce, potatoes, and cotton, despite the fact that the chemicals are considered to be a type of poly-and-perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). In a press release from November 2025, the EPA maintains that, according to a 2023 definition from the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, PFAS, commonly called “forever chemicals,” are defined as compounds having two or more fluorinated carbons. The newly approved pesticides should not be categorized alongside PFAS, asserts the EPA, because they contain single-fluorinated carbons. Meanwhile, in the EU, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Chemicals Agency define PFAS as any chemical with at least one fully fluorinated carbon. In 2020, an international group of scientists published a paper in Environmental Science & Technology Letters that argued all PFAS should be managed as a single class of chemicals because of their widespread health and environmental effects.
The Center for Food Safety has challenged the approval of these pesticides in court, stating that cyclobutrifluram is a potential endocrine disruptor that can lead to cancer in humans. It claims the EPA has completely ignored cumulative effects of these chemicals. According to the EPA’s own safety memorandum for isocycloseram, it’s highly toxic to fish and other aquatic animals, as well as terrestrial invertebrates, such as honeybees.
Native Bees Get Legal Rights
By Darby Stipe
A province in Peru has granted its native bees legal rights, in a world-first effort to protect an insect in this way. The new laws, passed by Satipo province in October 2025 and the town of Nauta later in December, give at least 175 species of native bees the right to exist and flourish without threats impeding their survival. Lawsuits can also be filed on the bees’ behalf. Stingless bees in Peru are an essential part of the natural ecosystem, pollinating the vast majority of food crops, including those important for international export. In addition to the economic and environmental benefits they provide, stingless bees are an important part of the Indigenous peoples’ cultures in the region, having been cultivated for hundreds of years. Threats, including pesticides, deforestation, and non-native bees, have contributed to steady declines in Peru’s stingless bee populations for decades.
These new protections are part of a larger “rights of nature” movement, which seeks to provide legal rights to animals and larger ecosystems, such as rivers. A 2021 study in the Journal of Maps found 409 rights-of-nature laws on the books in 39 countries. The goal of laws like these is to allow communities to more effectively advocate for key species and ecosystems under threat. Colorado-based Earth Law Center is a leading group working on the issue.
Hunters Aim to Help the Hungry
By Amanda Sorell
In Georgia, hunters can bag 12 deer per year, and since 1993, a Georgia Wildlife Federation program called Hunters for the Hungry has helped them donate the meat they don’t need or can’t store. Through the program, participants send excess venison, a high-protein, low-fat meat, to participating processors, which recently expanded from just six in the state to 56 after a 2024 increase in state funding. The program’s upgrade also included additional freezer trailers for keeping meat. Post-processing, the venison goes to local food banks. This year, the program’s goal is to provide 140,000 pounds of donated meat to food-insecure families in Georgia, where one in seven people face hunger.
In ‘Butterfly Town U.S.A.,’ Don’t Mess with Monarchs
By Amanda Sorell
Decades ago, Pacific Grove, California, adopted the moniker Butterfly Town U.S.A. as a nod to the monarchs that migrate through every October. With buildings and businesses named after butterflies, an annual butterfly parade, a volunteer-run monarch sanctuary, and fines leveled at anyone who dares “molest or interfere” with these winged creatures, it’s a place that celebrates and protects Lepidoptera. Still, residents have seen monarch populations plummet by 99 percent since the 1980s, when millions of monarchs would overwinter in California. In 2023, the Western Monarch Count welcomed 233,000 monarchs; a year later, volunteers counted only 9,119, and Pacific Grove residents witnessed a mass mortality event caused by pesticides. In response, the town’s residents advocate for strategies that can help these butterflies, including planting native nectar plants and milkweeds, refraining from pesticide use, and supporting a strong Endangered Species Act. Despite this, the monarch’s listing as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act has been delayed, perhaps until later this year. Get involved in your local count at Western Monarch Count.
A Hemp House in the Heartland
By Amanda Sorell
A partnership between Kansas State University and Habitat for Humanity of the Northern Flint Hills is giving rise to a uniquely designed affordable house in Ogden, Kansas. The home uses hemp insulation, showing how effective the material is at moderating temperatures and thus reducing energy requirements. According to research by professor Michael Gibson, who leads K-State’s Net Positive Studio, which designed the house, using hempcrete and hemp fiber insulation in buildings can address three facets of the U.S. housing crisis: supply, affordability, and sustainability. Legal to cultivate only since 2018, the hemp for this project was sourced from the Prairie Band Potawatomi Reservation north of Topeka, where it’s grown without irrigation, insecticides, or tilling. Follow the home’s progress at Net Positive Studio.
Gleaning for Good: Connecting Farms to Neighbors in Need
By Ciara Konhaus and Kelly Dolan
What began as a small, community-driven gleaning effort in northeastern Vermont has grown into a statewide and nationally recognized model for making the most of the state’s surplus crops. Salvation Farms’ mission is simple but ambitious: to create a future where all are fed and farms are thriving. Through partnerships, smart use of resources, and building hands-on skills, the organization brings surplus food from local farms into a more resilient food system.
Farms end up with surplus crops for many reasons. A buyer cancels. A crop grows into the “wrong” size or shape. Whatever the reason, perfectly edible food often never leaves the field. In 2016, Salvation Farms conducted the nation’s first statewide study of on-farm food loss, finding that more than 14.3 million pounds of vegetables go unharvested each year in Vermont alone. Meanwhile, two in five Vermonters struggle to meet basic food needs, and the state’s higher education and health-care institutions alone spend over $40 million annually purchasing fresh produce, most of it from outside Vermont.
Salvation Farms fills this gap through two complementary programs: a gleaning program that harvests and redistributes farm surplus, and a processing program designed to manage surplus at scale.
Gleaning is an ancient practice that involves harvesting and rescuing edible crops that would otherwise go to waste. For each week of the growing season, Salvation Farms’ gleaning staff connects with farmers to learn which crops might be available. If a large harvest is offered, volunteers organize quickly to pick, pack, and move the food. This volunteer-powered model is essential; the work simply couldn’t happen without strong community involvement.
Each year, Salvation Farms gleans and distributes up to 70,000 pounds of produce from more than 40 farms to over 60 recipient sites, including food shelves, after-school programs, meal sites, and elder-care providers. Produce collected during the week is brought to a storage cooler, kept fresh, and delivered on Mondays and Tuesdays across the Lamoille Valley and Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Each recipient site is offered whatever is available that week – be it cucumbers, squash, and tomatoes in summer or an abundance of root crops in fall – and staff coordinate to make sure everyone gets what they need.
While the gleaning program chugs along, Salvation Farms’ processing program handles surplus at scale, aggregating and minimally processing crops, such as carrots, potatoes, squash, and tomatoes. The produce is prepared in ready-to-use forms (peeled, chopped, and frozen) and distributed to schools, hospitals, correctional facilities, and other institutions that often face barriers to sourcing local food.
In 2026, Salvation Farms will partner with the Center for an Agricultural Economy to renovate processing space at the Vermont Food Venture Center, significantly expanding the community’s capacity to prepare and distribute local crops.
The Return of the GMO Tomato
By Amanda Sorell
The first-ever genetically modified crop approved for human consumption, the Flavr Savr tomato, never really got off the ground. Altered to retain firmness, it was introduced in 1994 and taken off the market in 1997, and the company that created it was acquired by Monsanto. In the decades since, agrichemical companies shifted their focus to commodity crops, such as alfalfa, corn, and soy, modified to resist herbicides and sold to farmers.
But now, genetically engineered tomatoes could return to store shelves. According to nonprofit The Non-GMO Project, the ‘Sicilian Rouge’ tomato was gene-edited to contain high levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), “an amino acid believed to lower blood pressure and aid in relaxation,” and the ‘Norfolk Purple’ tomato was engineered with snapdragon DNA to produce more anthocyanins, antioxidants that give the tomato its purple hue.
Currently, ‘Sicilian Rouge’ is sold only in Japan, though the company behind it has announced its intention to bring the tomato to the U.S. The ‘Norfolk Purple’ is already cultivated in the U.S., primarily for sale to restaurants, and is the first transgenic GMO seed marketed to home growers. Meanwhile, researchers in England and South Korea have engineered tomatoes with increased vitamin D.
The Non-GMO Project says these tomatoes “are part of a new wave of GMOs targeting the health-conscious consumer, not the farmer,” and that several of the biofortified tomato varieties were developed with new techniques that could “sidestep older regulatory barriers.” It writes, “Whether the public embraces or rejects new GMOs, one thing remains clear: Transparent labeling and reliable verification are essential for a functioning food system.”
In a Texas Orchard, Bats Control Bugs
By Amanda Sorell
During their nocturnal excursions, bats feast on what humans call “pests” – from mosquitoes to invasive moths – saving the U.S. agricultural industry billions of dollars per year in pest control, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. As the number of bats decreases because of disease and habitat loss, pests – and thus pesticide use – increase.
Now, Swift River Pecans, an orchard in Fentress, Texas, is taking advantage of bats’ appetites. The orchard has partnered with Merlin Tuttle’s Bat Conservation to reduce pests and build bat habitat at the same time by installing bat houses in the pecan orchards. The Merlin team will identify which bats inhabit the houses and which insects they’re eating. The farm hopes to find the bats feeding on insects that damage pecan crops, such as the pecan nut casebearer moth, in order to promote its regenerative pest-control method to other orchards as an alternative to conventional chemical methods.
Owner Troy Swift told KCUR that 2025 was the first year the orchard didn’t spray insecticides, and it still had a successful crop. The approach is part of the farm’s broader efforts to use regenerative practices and eliminate pesticides, rebuild soil, reduce erosion, and more. It also sells bat houses and shares design plans on its website.
Minneapolis Turns Wood Chips into Charcoal
By Amanda Sorell
Biochar is a kind of charcoal made by heating wood at high temperatures to turn it into a soil amendment. It’s often made at a home or farm scale, but in April 2025, the city of Minneapolis broke ground on the first city-owned and -operated biochar facility in North America.
According to its website, Minneapolis broke into biochar through the efforts of the city health department’s carbon sequestration program manager, Jim Doten. In 2011, Doten served as a hydrologist in Afghanistan, where he researched soil restoration and studied biochar, which he found boosted crop health and size and led to less water use. When he returned in 2013, he brought biochar’s benefits back to his boss and partnered with the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community to launch a pilot program and test its effectiveness. Their success led the city to expand its efforts, first by boosting city plots with biochar, and ultimately building the biochar facility.
When it’s up and running, the facility will have the capacity to transform more than 3,000 tons of wood waste into 500 tons of biochar, a process that the city says reduces tree waste, improves soil health, and removes carbon from the air – the “equivalent of taking over 789 cars off the road.” And the reduction of wood waste is especially useful as the city loses tree canopy to the emerald ash borer.
Youth Project Helps New Farmers Bloom
By Amanda Sorell
“Growing food. Growing people.” This tagline touted by Blooming Health Farms – an aquaponic chicken farm in Greeley, Colorado – reveals the nonprofit’s goal of cultivating more than food. It aims to help youth “find purpose, gain skills, and improve well-being through the power of proven and innovative farming practices.”
One way the farm is supporting youth in agricultural entrepreneurship is through its 16-week Egg-to-Table program. According to the farm’s co-founder Sean Short, participants assist inside a working egg-laying business, helping with incubation, brooding, daily care, housing, biosecurity, and recordkeeping. They also support business tasks, such as packing and selling eggs, seasonal chicken rentals, attending a farmers market booth, and selling feed. “The idea is simple,” Short says. “Real farmwork that builds real skills and dependable habits” that keep the youth engaged in contributing to their communities.
Students Study Salmon
By Amanda Sorell
Reduced habitat and hungry predators aren’t the only dangers California salmon face – in 2020, researchers noted that a nutritional deficiency, thiamine deficiency complex (TDC), was killing a high number of young salmon in fish hatcheries. To determine the cause of TDC, those researchers, from the Department of Fish and Wildlife Fish Health Laboratory and the UC Davis Aquatic Animal Health Laboratory, launched a partnership with scientists nationwide. But to gather enough data, the researchers needed numerous assistants – and that’s where high school students stepped in.
A teacher in Yolo County had noticed salmon in the classroom fish tank were swimming in circles, a symptom of TDC, and reached out to the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. Upon receiving the teacher’s message, researchers realized this was their ticket to enlist assistance, and they provided classrooms across California with fish tanks filled with salmon eggs so the students could study them. From 2020 to 2025, more than 3,000 students collected data for the final study, which was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in June 2025.
The students’ work helped surface the cause of TDC: anchovy-dominated diets due to reduced oceanic biodiversity. The study determined that thiamine injections into adults supported early life-stage survival and swimming behavior, but that the issue will persist for as long as the salmon’s diet is dominated by northern anchovy. Beyond the study, says UC Davis Magazine, the high schoolers’ data collection serves as a model for projects that allow students to learn about conservation challenges in their own communities and contribute to the solutions.
Stories originally published in the Green Gazette column in the 2026 issues of MOTHER EARTH NEWS.
