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Scientists: Global warming may hinder timber output in low-level Northwest forests

Study: Warmed NW forests may yield less timber

Utah lawmakers get differing views on climate change, root causes of warming at hearing

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah lawmakers heard competing views on climate change Wednesday: one emphasizing the vast scientific consensus about warming trends and humanity’s influence and another raising doubts about the root causes.

Tsunamis obliterate coral in some areas, damage others in American Samoa

HONOLULU — Scientists surveying American Samoa’s coral reefs say Sept. 29’s tsunami obliterated some corals and damaged others to the point that they may not recover.

Report: Climate change means more hungry children, greater investment in farming needed

JOHANNESBURG — Scientists fear climate change will mean 25 million more hungry children over the next four decades, with subsistence farmers in Africa and Asia particularly hard hit by global warming, according to a report issued Wednesday.

Rift opens between major utilities and US Chamber of Commerce over climate change

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A rift widened between the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and some utilities as another major power provider quit over the business group’s hard stance on pending climate regulation.

If greenhouse gases are cut as planned, Earth still gets 6 degrees hotter, update suggests

WASHINGTON — Earth’s temperature is likely to jump nearly 6 degrees between now and the end of the century even if every country cuts greenhouse gas emissions as proposed, according to a United Nations update.

Government study: Many urban streams salty enough to hurt aquatic life, road salt blamed

MINNEAPOLIS — Many urban streams have become salty enough to harm aquatic life, largely because of salt used for deicing roads in the winter, according to a new government study released Wednesday.

Prepared text of President Barack Obama’s speech to school students on Tuesday

The prepared text of President Barack Obama’s back-to-school address scheduled for Tuesdays, as released in advance by the White House:

Mass. science center on Cape Cod to build ocean monitoring stations to research climate change

FALMOUTH, Mass. — A Massachusetts ocean studies institute is building underwater data collection stations to help researchers understand the ocean’s role in climate change.

Study says climate change threatens water, food security for 1.6 billion people in South Asia

KATMANDU, Nepal — Effects of climate change including the melting of Himalayan glaciers threaten water and food security for more than 1.6 billion people living in South Asia, according to a study released Wednesday.

Billions of beetles, wildfire spread imperil the northern forests of a warmer world

HAINES JUNCTION, Yukon Territory — A veil of smoke settled over the forest in the shadow of the St. Elias Mountains, in a wilderness whose spruce trees stood tall and gray, a deathly gray even in the greenest heart of a Yukon summer.

Beeps drown out croaks: Traffic noise may foil efforts by urban frogs to attract sex partners

CANBERRA, Australia — Traffic noise could be ruining the sex lives of urban frogs by drowning out the seductive croaks of amorous males, an Australian researcher said Friday.

Report: Pandas face uncertain future because of earthquake damage in SW China

BEIJING — About 35 pandas at a reserve in southwestern China face an uncertain future after nearly a quarter of their habitat was destroyed by last year’s powerful earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people, according to a study published Monday.

University of Colorado study calculates global warming threat to Colorado River reservoirs

BOULDER, Colo. — University of Colorado researchers say global warming increases the chances that the Colorado River system’s reservoirs could be depleted by mid-century.

Study says El Nino comes in two types, one encouraging more hurricanes, one with fewer

WASHINGTON — El Nino may have a split personality.

Study: Weather, not pollution controls, had bigger role in cleaning Beijing air for Olympics

BEIJING — Beijing’s notoriously dirty air was cleaner during last summer’s Olympic games, but pollution levels were still much worse than at recent Olympics, despite a massive Chinese cleanup campaign, a new report said.

Study: Weather played larger role in cleaning air for Beijing Olympics than pollution measures

BEIJING — Beijing’s notoriously dirty air got cleaner during last summer’s Olympic Games, but the weather played a larger role than the government’s massive pollution control measures, a new report says.

UN climate chief criticizes Japan’s CO2 emissions target, says rich countries short of goal

BONN, Germany — Japan unveiled a new target Wednesday for reducing greenhouse gas emissions 15 percent by 2020, but the plan was slammed by environmentalists and the U.N. climate chief as leaving the industrial world dangerously short of its pollution goals.

The dying of the winds: Study hints at reduced wind speed in US, may be a problem for turbines

WASHINGTON — The wind, a favorite power source of the green energy movement, seems to be dying down across the United States. And the cause, ironically, may be global warming — the very problem wind power seeks to address.

Obama administration revokes last-minute action by Bush to limit endangered species protection

WASHINGTON — Federal agencies again will have to consult with government wildlife experts before taking actions that could have an impact on threatened or endangered species.

Study: Climate change to hit SE Asia harder than most of the world’s regions

BANGKOK — Southeast Asia will be hit particularly hard by climate change, causing the region’s agriculture-dependent economies to contract by as much as 6.7 percent annually by the end of the century, according to a study released Monday.