Three years ago, I moved to Minnesota to sell hazelnuts. I believed strongly in their potential to fight climate change, and I was overcome with excitement – getting tongue-tied talking about what it could mean to swap the endless corn and soy for a crop with seemingly endless environmental benefits.
But I soon noticed that the attributes of hazelnuts that dazzled me enough to quit my job and move across the country were not the same attributes I was looking for when planning menus and filling up my shopping cart.
I would purchase foods based on indicators that sustainable farming practices had been used (organic, regenerative, local, etc.), but overlook the inherent qualities of the specific foods themselves. My hopes in writing this list are (1) that you too will be dazzled by the wonders of Midwest hazelnuts, and (2) that you will seek out the foods in your region that possess these underappreciated qualities. After all, these are the foods that will keep farms resilient and communities fed as the world changes around us.
Without further ado, three questions to help you identify a food as climate-friendly:
- Is it native?
While locally-grown food receives considerable attention for its sustainability, the “localness” of a food has just as much to do with the history of generations passed.
“A great opportunity lies in the consumption of … native flora adapted to the particular place we inhabit. These indigenous foods are knit into the ecology of a place, supporting the vitality of the soil, water, and wild plant and wildlife communities, as well as human needs.”
– Jared Rosenbaum, Botanist and author of Wild Plant Culture
The American hazelnut (Corylus americana) has grown wild in the forests and oak savannas of the Midwest since the melting of the glaciers. They have been tested by centuries of harsh winters, hot summers, heavy storms, dry periods, pests and diseases. They survived, and stand today ready to handle the variability of Midwestern weather conditions.
This resilience becomes even more important as the climate continues to change. In 2023, the Midwest was hit by a record drought. We feared the hazelnuts would suffer, but we ended the year with a record harvest.
Resilience in our food system is not the only environmental benefit of adding native foods to our farms and diets. If you reach into a hazelnut bush during harvest time, you’ll quickly find bird nests, caterpillars, treefrogs, and other native species that built homes on farmed hazelnut bushes just as they would in the wild. When we eat native foods, farms become habitat.
Lastly, native foods need very few human-supplied inputs to thrive. After all, they were meant to grow in a region’s natural conditions. Hazelnut farmers can expect a successful harvest without adding fertilizers or pesticides. Remember the drought I mentioned? Most hazelnut growers didn’t water their hazelnut bushes once.
Native foods like Midwest hazelnuts provide greater climate resilience, create habitat for native flora and fauna, and require fewer inputs to thrive.
Find native foods in your area! Check out the cookbooks, recipes, and restaurants from Indigenous chefs and food sovereignty organizations in your area. Peruse a foraging book and earmark native plants that are grown commercially. Visit your local farmers market and chat with farmers about why they grow what they grow.
- Is it a tree (or bush)?
I scarcely see orchards get the credit they deserve for their environmental benefits. Your average apple tree is sequestering a lot more carbon than your broccoli. Trees play a crucial role in mitigating climate change by sequestering carbon dioxide and storing it long-term, not only in the soil, but also in their woody biomass. Foods that are grown on trees, such as fruits and nuts, contribute to this process.
Hazelnut tidbit: Every few years, hazelnut production will slow and the bushes will be “coppiced.” Coppicing is the practice of cutting the bush down, but leaving the roots intact. The branches grow back quickly in a couple of years, efficiently sucking up carbon in all that new biomass, and reigniting the productivity of the bush.
Not all orchards are created equal. Take an average California almond farm, for example. Almonds are notorious for their massive water consumption, and farms have been known to sink into the ground by several inches due to the immense groundwater extraction. Furthermore, a sustainable orchard ought to have an understory. If the soil below the trees is bare, it is vulnerable to the elements and limited in its carbon storage capacity.
Hazelnut farm in Dayton, MN
- Is it perennial?
This is a big one.
If you already determined that a food came from a tree, you’ve got a yes here as well.
Perennial crops are foods that return each year without needing to be replanted. Why does this make them climate-friendly? Because the soil stays undisturbed for years at a time.
Picture an apple orchard (or hazelnut orchard) at harvest time. The trees and their roots stay intact as people or machines pick off the food. The next year, the tree blooms again.
Now picture a field of corn. Each year, the plows dig up all the roots from last year to plant anew, and all the carbon that was sequestered during that corn’s short life is released back into the atmosphere.
Some perennial crops may surprise you. Kernza is a newly developed perennial grain that is becoming a climate-smart substitute for wheat. Asparagus, rhubarb, and artichokes are all perennial vegetables.
The cookbook Perennial Kitchen by Beth Dooley is a wonderful way to explore perennials in your kitchen.
Thank you so much for reading! If you’re interested in bringing some of these dazzling Midwest hazelnuts into your kitchen, I hope you will check us out at Hazel Heart Farms! Use the code CLIMATE10 at checkout for 10% off all online orders.
Emma Dempsey is the Director of Sales and Marketing at Hazel Heart Farms, a farmer collective building a regenerative hazelnut industry in the Midwest.
Connect with Hazel Heart Farms on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook!
The post Lessons from Hazelnuts appeared first on Climate Generation.
Climate Change
DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Blazing heat hits Europe
FANNING THE FLAMES: Wildfires “fanned by a heatwave and strong winds” caused havoc across southern Europe, Reuters reported. It added: “Fire has affected nearly 440,000 hectares (1,700 square miles) in the eurozone so far in 2025, double the average for the same period of the year since 2006.” Extreme heat is “breaking temperature records across Europe”, the Guardian said, with several countries reporting readings of around 40C.
HUMAN TOLL: At least three people have died in the wildfires erupting across Spain, Turkey and Albania, France24 said, adding that the fires have “displaced thousands in Greece and Albania”. Le Monde reported that a child in Italy “died of heatstroke”, while thousands were evacuated from Spain and firefighters “battled three large wildfires” in Portugal.
UK WILDFIRE RISK: The UK saw temperatures as high as 33.4C this week as England “entered its fourth heatwave”, BBC News said. The high heat is causing “nationally significant” water shortfalls, it added, “hitting farms, damaging wildlife and increasing wildfires”. The Daily Mirror noted that these conditions “could last until mid-autumn”. Scientists warn the UK faces possible “firewaves” due to climate change, BBC News also reported.
Around the world
- GRID PRESSURES: Iraq suffered a “near nationwide blackout” as elevated power demand – due to extreme temperatures of around 50C – triggered a transmission line failure, Bloomberg reported.
- ‘DIRE’ DOWN UNDER: The Australian government is keeping a climate risk assessment that contains “dire” implications for the continent “under wraps”, the Australian Financial Review said.
- EXTREME RAINFALL: Mexico City is “seeing one of its heaviest rainy seasons in years”, the Washington Post said. Downpours in the Japanese island of Kyushu “caused flooding and mudslides”, according to Politico. In Kashmir, flash floods killed 56 and left “scores missing”, the Associated Press said.
- SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION: China and Brazil agreed to “ensure the success” of COP30 in a recent phone call, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
- PLASTIC ‘DEADLOCK’: Talks on a plastic pollution treaty have failed again at a summit in Geneva, according to the Guardian, with countries “deadlocked” on whether it should include “curbs on production and toxic chemicals”.
15
The number of times by which the most ethnically-diverse areas in England are more likely to experience extreme heat than its “least diverse” areas, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- As many as 13 minerals critical for low-carbon energy may face shortages under 2C pathways | Nature Climate Change
- A “scoping review” examined the impact of climate change on poor sexual and reproductive health and rights in sub-Saharan Africa | PLOS One
- A UK university cut the carbon footprint of its weekly canteen menu by 31% “without students noticing” | Nature Food
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Factchecking Trump’s climate report
A report commissioned by the US government to justify rolling back climate regulations contains “at least 100 false or misleading statements”, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists. The report, compiled in two months by five hand-picked researchers, inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed” and misleadingly states that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”80
Spotlight
Does Xi Jinping care about climate change?
This week, Carbon Brief unpacks new research on Chinese president Xi Jinping’s policy priorities.
On this day in 2005, Xi Jinping, a local official in eastern China, made an unplanned speech when touring a small village – a rare occurrence in China’s highly-choreographed political culture.
In it, he observed that “lucid waters and lush mountains are mountains of silver and gold” – that is, the environment cannot be sacrificed for the sake of growth.
(The full text of the speech is not available, although Xi discussed the concept in a brief newspaper column – see below – a few days later.)
In a time where most government officials were laser-focused on delivering economic growth, this message was highly unusual.
Forward-thinking on environment
As a local official in the early 2000s, Xi endorsed the concept of “green GDP”, which integrates the value of natural resources and the environment into GDP calculations.
He also penned a regular newspaper column, 22 of which discussed environmental protection – although “climate change” was never mentioned.
This focus carried over to China’s national agenda when Xi became president.
New research from the Asia Society Policy Institute tracked policies in which Xi is reported by state media to have “personally” taken action.
It found that environmental protection is one of six topics in which he is often said to have directly steered policymaking.
Such policies include guidelines to build a “Beautiful China”, the creation of an environmental protection inspection team and the “three-north shelterbelt” afforestation programme.
“It’s important to know what Xi’s priorities are because the top leader wields outsized influence in the Chinese political system,” Neil Thomas, Asia Society Policy Institute fellow and report co-author, told Carbon Brief.
Local policymakers are “more likely” to invest resources in addressing policies they know have Xi’s attention, to increase their chances for promotion, he added.
What about climate and energy?
However, the research noted, climate and energy policies have not been publicised as bearing Xi’s personal touch.
“I think Xi prioritises environmental protection more than climate change because reducing pollution is an issue of social stability,” Thomas said, noting that “smoggy skies and polluted rivers” were more visible and more likely to trigger civil society pushback than gradual temperature increases.
The paper also said topics might not be linked to Xi personally when they are “too technical” or “politically sensitive”.
For example, Xi’s landmark decision for China to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 is widely reported as having only been made after climate modelling – facilitated by former climate envoy Xie Zhenhua – showed that this goal was achievable.
Prior to this, Xi had never spoken publicly about carbon neutrality.
Prof Alex Wang, a University of California, Los Angeles professor of law not involved in the research, noted that emphasising Xi’s personal attention may signal “top” political priorities, but not necessarily Xi’s “personal interests”.
By not emphasising climate, he said, Xi may be trying to avoid “pushing the system to overprioritise climate to the exclusion of the other priorities”.
There are other ways to know where climate ranks on the policy agenda, Thomas noted:
“Climate watchers should look at what Xi says, what Xi does and what policies Xi authorises in the name of the ‘central committee’. Is Xi talking more about climate? Is Xi establishing institutions and convening meetings that focus on climate? Is climate becoming a more prominent theme in top-level documents?”
Watch, read, listen
TRUMP EFFECT: The Columbia Energy Exchange podcast examined how pressure from US tariffs could affect India’s clean energy transition.
NAMIBIAN ‘DESTRUCTION’: The National Observer investigated the failure to address “human rights abuses and environmental destruction” claims against a Canadian oil company in Namibia.
‘RED AI’: The Network for the Digital Economy and the Environment studied the state of current research on “Red AI”, or the “negative environmental implications of AI”.
Coming up
- 17 August: Bolivian general elections
- 18-29 August: Preparatory talks on the entry into force of the “High Seas Treaty”, New York
- 18-22 August: Y20 Summit, Johannesburg
- 21 August: Advancing the “Africa clean air programme” through Africa-Asia collaboration, Yokohama
Pick of the jobs
- Lancaster Environment Centre, senior research associate: JUST Centre | Salary: £39,355-£45,413. Location: Lancaster, UK
- Environmental Justice Foundation, communications and media officer, Francophone Africa | Salary: XOF600,000-XOF800,000. Location: Dakar, Senegal
- Politico, energy & climate editor | Salary: Unknown. Location: Brussels, Belgium
- EnviroCatalysts, meteorologist | Salary: Unknown. Location: New Delhi, India
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report appeared first on Carbon Brief.
DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report
Climate Change
New York Already Denied Permits to These Gas Pipelines. Under Trump, They Could Get Greenlit
The specter of a “gas-for-wind” compromise between the governor and the White House is drawing the ire of residents as a deadline looms.
Hundreds of New Yorkers rallied against new natural gas pipelines in their state as a deadline loomed for the public to comment on a revived proposal to expand the gas pipeline that supplies downstate New York.
New York Already Denied Permits to These Gas Pipelines. Under Trump, They Could Get Greenlit
A “critical assessment” report commissioned by the Trump administration to justify a rollback of US climate regulations contains at least 100 false or misleading statements, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists.
The report – “A critical review of impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the US climate” – was published by the US Department of Energy (DoE) on 23 July, just days before the government laid out plans to revoke a scientific finding used as the legal basis for emissions regulation.
The executive summary of the controversial report inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed”.
It also states misleadingly that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”.
Compiled in just two months by five “independent” researchers hand-selected by the climate-sceptic US secretary of energy Chris Wright, the document has sparked fierce criticism from climate scientists, who have pointed to factual errors, misrepresentation of research, messy citations and the cherry-picking of data.
Experts have also noted the authors’ track record of promoting views at odds with the mainstream understanding of climate science.
Wright’s department claims the report – which is currently open to public comment as part of a 30-day review – underwent an “internal peer-review period amongst [the] DoE’s scientific research community”.
The report is designed to provide a scientific underpinning to one flank of the Trump administration’s plans to rescind a finding that serves as the legal prerequisite for federal emissions regulation. (The second flank is about legal authority to regulate emissions.)
The “endangerment finding” – enacted by the Obama administration in 2009 – states that six greenhouse gases are contributing to the net-negative impacts of climate change and, thus, put the public in danger.
In a press release on 29 July, the US Environmental Protection Agency said “updated studies and information” set out in the new report would “challenge the assumptions” of the 2009 finding.
Carbon Brief asked a wide range of climate scientists, including those cited in the “critical review” itself, to factcheck the report’s various claims and statements.
The post Factcheck: Trump’s climate report includes more than 100 false or misleading claims appeared first on Carbon Brief.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-trumps-climate-report-includes-more-than-100-false-or-misleading-claims/
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