Democracy Now! July 3, 2012

July 03, 2012 from Democracy Now! via Creative Commons License BY-NC-ND

The past two weeks have witnessed the worst forest fires in Colorado history, a deadly Mid-Atlantic storm, and a record-shattering heatwave on the East Coast. Democracy Now! discusses how these extreme events fit into the model of changing weather patterns long predicted by climate change scientists. And delegates from 190 countries have gathered at the United Nations to begin talks on the first-ever global agreement regulating the arms trade. Plus headlines, and more.

(more) (less)

In This Video

Climate change

Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions, or in the distribution of weather around the average conditions. Cli... Explore this topic

Wildfire

A wildfire is an uncontrolled fire in an area of combustible vegetation that occurs in the countryside or a wilderness area. Other names such as brush fire, bushfire, forest fire, desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, peat fire, vegetation fire, and veldfire may be used to descr... Explore this topic

Heat wave

A heat wave is a prolonged period of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity. While definitions vary, a heat wave is measured relative to the usual weather in the area and relative to normal temperatures for the season. Temperatures that people from ... Explore this topic

Extreme weather

Extreme weather includes unusual, severe or unseasonal weather; weather at the extremes of the historical distribution—the range that has been seen in the past. The most commonly used definition of extreme weather is based on an event's climatological distribution: Extreme wea... Explore this topic

Tropical cyclone

The Tropical Cyclone type holds all hurricanes, typhoons, tropical storms and other 'warm core' storm systems. A tropical cyclone is a storm system fueled by the heat released when moist air rises and the water vapor in it condenses. The term describes the storm's origin in... Explore this topic

Global warming

Global warming is the rise in the average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans since the late 19th century and its projected continuation. Since the early 20th century, Earth's mean surface temperature has increased by about 0.8 °C, with about two-thirds of the increas... Explore this topic

United States

The United States of America, commonly called the United States and America, is a federal republic consisting of fifty states and a federal district. The 48 contiguous states and the federal district of Washington, D.C. are in central North America between Canada and Mexico. T... Explore this topic

Colorado

The State of Colorado is a state in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States of America. Colorado may also be considered to be a part of the Mountain, Southwestern, Midwestern, and Central regions of the United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the s... Explore this topic

Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands in the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by severe drought combined with a failure to apply dryland farming methods t... Explore this topic

National Guard of the United States

The National Guard of the United States is a reserve military force composed of National Guard military members or units of each state and the territories of Guam and the Virgin Islands plus the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia under federally recognize... Explore this topic

Also See

Climate change

Extreme weather

Wildfire

Watch Next

12:31

Australia on Fire: Record-Shattering Heat, Wildfires Ravage Nation

Democracy Now! | Jan 9

Two new colors have been added to Australia's weather maps to show temperatures exceeding 122 degrees Fahrenheit in the country's fiercest heat-wav...