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Energy transport in ICF targets is dominated by electron heat conduction and radiative energy transfer. This transport often occurs in form of thermal waves with steep fronts, which may run separately from hydrodynamic waves and at different speeds. Self-similar solutions are derived for the different limiting cases. Both stationary and time-dependent solutions for supersonic heat waves and subsonic ablative heat waves are discussed, describing detonation, deflagration, and applications to laser and X-ray driven ablation. Formulas for rocket efficiency and implosion velocity for fusion targets with high aspect ratio are derived, which are used in Chapter 5 to identify the operational window for inertial confinement fusion on an purely analytic basis.

A hotter climate means there will be more heat waves and heat-related illnesses, such as heat exhaustion and heat stroke, the leading causes of weather-related death in the US. Without mitigation, annual world-wide heat-related deaths may exceed 225,000 by 2050. Heat will spawn more extreme weather events such as severe thunderstorms, and tornadoes. Although the number of hurricanes may not increase, the moisture-laden air and warmer oceans will make those that do form more intense and deadly.

Regular occurrences of flood, drought, cyclones, and heat waves, occasional occurrences of hailstorm, whirlwind, tornado, and landslide and the consequent loss of lives and properties is a constant phenomenon in the state of Odisha. The state is ranked one of the most vulnerable in India and is called the disaster capital of the country. The chapter first provides some theoretical arguments and examples on natural disaster impact on national economies to make a case whether economic backwardness of Odisha can be linked to the natural disasters incidences as frequent disasters limit the capital accumulation and investment capacity of the people. Then a detailed description of the occurrences, the spatial spread, and the intensity of the four frequent disasters and a brief report on each of the other less frequent ones that has befallen the state is presented. Using some econometric analysis, the chapter shows the impact of severe disaster years on State’s Gross Domestic Product.

Globally, impacts on public health may be one of the most important consequences of climate change. In California, which already has a robust public-health system, these impacts are expected to be less dramatic.Nonetheless, climate change is expected to increase public-health challenges in Californiaand to create new ones. This chapter examines two of the most important challenges—tropospheric ozone control and heat waves—and discusses how mitigation and adaptation efforts related to public health overlap, why managing this overlap requires interagency coordination, and the importance of targeting adaptation efforts.

This chapter details the east country in July, looking at a nuclear power station in Sizewell. Once a fishing village and a remote smugglers' spot, Sizewell has been known for fifty years for the hint of nuclear fear. The chapter then turns to the farmlets of Albion. In the Second World War, allotments were vital for the Dig for Victory campaign, swelling in number to two million. The ministry printed pamphlets on growing the exotic potato, the carrot and onion, and encouraged the formation of pig clubs. Vegetable rows appeared on bomb plot, front garden, village green, rail line side strip, and airfield. Postwar they fell away. Today, some 300,000 plots remain. The chapter also recounts a heat wave, when the poppy died and some roads were cheaply repaired patch by plastered patch.

As we continue our exploration of who rules the earth, we find that the economy, once you look inside it, relies on a vast system of rules and regulations, its cogs and wheels spinning day and night to enable the countless transactions that make up a modern economy. The relation between markets and rules is a fascinating one, far more complex than is suggested by the usual debates over government regulation versus free enterprise. Markets rely on rules. But increasingly, the reverse is also true: Some of our most innovative environmental policies and regulations have embedded within them market incentives designed to promote pro-environment behavior. To appreciate the stakes, let’s begin by considering what is arguably the greatest environmental tragedy—and biggest environmental success story—of all time. The removal of tetraethyl lead from gasoline has had a profound impact on human health and well-being worldwide. The change began in the United States in the late 1970s, soon spread to Europe, and over the next two decades diffused throughout the entire world. This shift was prompted by an innovative set of rules that actually assigned property rights to poison—and in the process created incentives for widespread changes in corporate behavior. Under the Clean Air Act of 1970, the US Environmental Protection Agency had the legal authority to regulate tetraethyl lead, which had been added to gasoline since the 1920s to boost engine performance. The original decision to add “ethyl” to the chemical mixture sloshing around in our gas tanks took place despite dire warnings from health experts. Foremost among these was Alice Hamilton, Harvard’s first female professor and the country’s leading expert on the health impacts of lead, which she knew intimately from her studies of worker exposure in the largely unregulated “dangerous trades” of the time. In 1925, the US Surgeon General convened a special meeting to decide whether ethyl production could proceed despite the known health risks. Hamilton argued that it would be reckless to deliberately disperse throughout the air a substance whose toxic effects (notably damage to the human nervous system) were well known for centuries.