"Anthropologists believe early humans evolved in Africa and then moved out from there in successive waves. However, what drove their migrations has been a matter of conjecture. One new explanation is climate change."

"TOKYO -- The Japanese government has decided to phase out nuclear power by sometime in the 2030s and shift the country in the direction of renewables, energy conservation and natural gas."

"Russia confirmed on Thursday it would not make cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from 2013 under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, joining Canada and Japan in rejecting an extension of the plan for fighting climate change."

"The record loss of Arctic sea ice this summer will echo throughout the weather patterns affecting the U.S. and Europe this winter, climate scientists said on Wednesday, since added heat in the Arctic influences the jet stream and may make extreme weather and climate events more likely."

"Searing droughts in the United States and Russia will deplete harvests of wheat, corn and soybeans, the U.S. government said on Wednesday, but global food supplies were not hurt as badly as many had feared."

"The first eight months of 2012 have been the warmest of any year on record in the contiguous United States, and this has been the third-hottest summer since record-keeping began in 1895, the U.S. National Climate Data Center said on Monday."

"A rugged stretch of coastline known as Japan's Nuclear Alley is dotted with 14 nuclear reactors and now there are warnings that several of these ageing nuclear plants sit near, or on, active faultlines."

"MIAMI -- The chief executive of the century-old company from America's heartland shifted nervously on the witness stand here as he tried to explain how a trusted senior vice president had been caught on a wiretap buying half a million dollars in smuggled merchandise, much of it from China."

"The government forecaster has issued its most definitive report since first raising the El Niño alert three months ago, forecasting a weak phenomenon that will last until the Northern Hemisphere spring."

"Bottom trawling by fishermen, long believed to harm marine life, may be even more damaging than previously thought, affecting the seabed as seriously as intensive ploughing of farmland erodes the soil, according to a new Spanish study."