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Hello and welcome to Eco Report.
Coming up later, Eco-Report’s Carrie Albright speaks with Shannon Gayk from IU’s English Department about the Environmental Futures Initiative—a group bringing together artists, scientists, scholars, and the community to explore our relationship with nature.
And now for your environmental reports:
Indiana Coal Plant Closures in Limbo as Federal Emergency Powers and Coal Ash Extensions Loom
Two coal power plants in Indiana are scheduled to shut down in 2025. These retirements are part of broader trends to phase out older, inefficient coal units in favor of cleaner energy sources. But now, those closures may not be allowed to happen.
Under the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Energy has begun using emergency powers to keep coal plants running in the name of grid reliability, even when state utilities say they’re no longer needed. Governor Mike Braun has raised concerns about electricity demand and has signaled support for reviewing whether coal plants should stay online longer. Yet grid experts have failed to show clear evidence that these specific plants are needed to prevent blackouts.
Keeping these coal plants open means continued air pollution, climate pollution, and delayed environmental cleanup for Indiana communities.
While these concerns are enough to raise alarm bells, there’s another factor in play. At this same time, the EPA is considering whether to give one of these utilities more time to continue disposing of toxic coal ash. Coal ash is a toxic waste produced by coal plants. One utility is asking regulators for permission to delay cleanup and keep disposing of coal ash in unlined ponds for another five years, just in case the plant is forced to keep running. This practice is linked to contaminating groundwater with harmful heavy metals, like arsenic, mercury, hexavalent chromium, and, lead. Even low level exposure to these is linked to cancer, respiratory issues, and neurological problems. The EPA is considering granting these extensions through 2031, which would make it easier to keep operating a plant that was supposed to close.
This is a major decision involving federal agencies, state leadership, and utility companies that could affect Indiana’s public health, economy, and environment, and set a precedent for coal plant retirements nationwide. Emergency orders undermine utilities’ and states’ clean-energy plans and slow nationwide retirements of outdated fuel production.
The public comment period on the coal ash extension runs through early January 2026. Its outcome could influence how long coal plants can legally operate. Utilities discussions and state regulatory hearings about coal plant reliability and retirement planning will continue into early 2026.
Establishing an informed generation of future environmental stewards starts with a clear approach. Public school teacher and author Kimi Waite is making the case that if we’re serious about solving climate change, we need to start teaching environmental justice in elementary schools—and she’s already proven it works with kindergarteners.
Waite suggests that teaching environmental justice gives students the tools to understand how pollution and racism intersect in their own neighborhoods—and what they can do about it. She points to recent state-level policies to include climate change instruction for all K-12 students as a step in the right direction, but says it needs to go further by explicitly including justice and equity in these lessons.
The current administration has consistently dismantled environmental resources that teachers and students rely on. The White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council was disbanded and the federal mapping tools that helped visualize connections between race, poverty, and pollution exposure were removed from the EPA website earlier this year. These are the sources educators rely on to incorporate environmental justice into conversations about weather, climate, and communities. When the author taught kindergarten in South Los Angeles, her five and six-year-old students used federal mapping tools to research air pollution in their own community. In math class, they created bar charts comparing pollution across neighborhoods of varying income levels. The lesson wasn’t just about science or math—it was about understanding systemic patterns and empowering young people to become what she calls “data detectives.”
Waite emphasizes that climate change can’t be taught without teaching about justice, because climate impacts hit marginalized communities hardest. This means weaving environmental justice across all subjects—art, social studies, math, science, even physical education—so students understand the root causes of the climate crisis, including systemic racism.
As districts figure out how to implement climate education requirements, the question isn’t just whether students learn about climate change—it’s whether they learn to see the connections between environmental harm and inequality, and whether they’re equipped to do something about it. Kimi Waite’s book on this topic, “Teaching Environmental Justice in the Elementary Classroom: Entry Points for Equity Across the K–5 Curriculum” will be published in February 2026.
For Pueblo Communities, Climate Resilience Begins With Language and Land
The Pueblo in New Mexico go a step beyond climate resilience with a practice of climate reverence. Jim E-note, makes the connection between Indigenous language and the ties to land as it seemingly speaks to him.
As quoted in Sierra’s winter magazine (2025) Enote states that language is (quote) “the breath of the wind, the timing of the snowmelt and the silence before the summer monsoons”(endQ)
Water issues are a grave concern nearly everywhere today, be it excess or scarcity! Drought has long been a serious concern in the Southwest U.S.—Enote relied on a tradition of the naming of locations within their territory to discover and recover a spring after a long-used natural spring in his native land ran dry. To him, as a Zuni farmer, he maintains that land and language are inseparable. Not only are expanding populations in cities in the Southwest depleting aquifers but historically there is evidence of extreme droughts that led to relocating ancient settlements to have water access.
Enote’s foundation, “Colorado Plateau,” finances native-led climate solutions in that desert region. It has resulted in greater unity among Pueblo tribes. Harmony among the native farmers and with nature is an encouraging outcome of listening to the land and those most able to interpret its meaning.
Trump Administration Moves to Dismantle National Weather and Climate Research Center
The climate community is in an uproar due to the most recent cuts from the Trump administration. It was just announced through X (formerly Twitter) that the administration is breaking up a 65-year-old research center in Colorado that’s been central to nearly every weather forecast and climate study in America.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research (or NCAR) in Boulder has been studying weather and climate since 1960, and developed some of the more significant technology used in predicting weather patterns. NCAR developed the instrument dropped from planes into hurricanes to help predict where storms will hit and how strong they’ll be. The center also created weather models used to forecast tornadoes, floods, and severe storms.
Now the administration says it’s dismantling the center, accusing it of being “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.” They say vital functions like weather modeling will move somewhere else, but have not confirmed where or how this will take place. Scientists and lawmakers are deeply concerned by this announcement. Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy, called dismantling NCAR “like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet.”
This decision seems to be targeting the Colorado state representatives, including the governor, who have refused to be complicit in other regulatory pressures, and these legislators are fighting back. They say that shutting down the facility would be deeply dangerous, cause massive job loss, and sacrifice America’s safety and standing in weather research globally. The ripples of this closure will compromise college and universities’ abilities to conduct climate research, and prevent NCAR from effectively monitoring air quality, anticipating droughts and extreme precipitation events, or accurately forecasting hurricane intensity.
NCAR works closely with federal partners like NOAA and NASA (both of which have received massive financial hits from the Trump administration over the last 12 months). NCA provides these institutions with scientific tools, computer models and data that help inform decisions regarding public safety, natural resources and environmental management. Dismantling NCAR will continue the degradation of climate research and community preparedness. As Antonio Busalacchi, the president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research says, this attack on NCAR is just another step in the Trump administration’s “attempts to cancel the freedom of scientific thought. … That should provide a shiver down the spine of every U.S. citizen.”
—Carrie Albright
Feature Report:
Bridging the arts and humanities with the natural world has long been a priority for our next interview guest, Shannon Gayk. Shannon is a medievalist and English professor at IU who has delved into the ways past societies responded to dramatic environmental upheaval—from cooling temperatures to plagues—using literature as a means for understanding. Today, she leads the Environmental Futures Initiative, fostering collaboration across arts and humanities, sciences, and local communities to deepen our attention to today’s changing world.
And now for some upcoming events:
- Take A Winter Solstice Hike at Spring Mill State Park on Sunday, December 21st, beginning at 10 am. Enjoy a long 2.5 mile hike on a short day on Trail 3. Meet at the Twin Caves parking lot.
- Whooper Wednesday will take place every Wednesday until February 25th at Goose Pond Fish and Wildlife Area. Meet at the visitor’s center at 8 am to walk around the property to spot resident winter birds, including the endangered Whooping Crane. Dress for the weather.
- Play Bird BINGO at McCormick’s Creek State Park on Saturday, December 27th, from 9:30 am to 5 pm. Go to the Nature Center to see if you can spot some common backyard birds. Find a row on your sheet to earn a prize.
- Make a Bird Treat at McCormick’s Creek State Park on Sunday, December 28th, from 1 to 1:30 pm. Meet in the Nature Center to create a pinecone bird treat for your backyard feathered friends. The craft is nut free.
- Celebrate the New Year with a First Day Hike at Brown County State Park on Thursday, January 1st, 2026, from 11 am to 12:30 pm. Meet at the Olympic Pool parking lot for a 2 mile hike. Enjoy hot chocolate at the end.
Credits:
This week’s headlines were written by Cynthia Roberts, and Carrie Albright
Today’s news feature was produced by Carrie Albright.
Julianna Dailey assembled the script which was edited by the EcoReport team and produced the upcoming events.
