This was a fairly gentle puzzle from Schadenfreude – the challenge was to idenitfy the empty cells where the cause and effect were to be entered, “thus thwarting an attempt to save the planet”. We were also told that after doing so, the grid entries would all be real words. It fairly soon became apparent that the across answers were all entered normally and the empty cells were the two complete rows of unchecked letters in down answers. The “real word” possibilities for these answers soon showed that the cause was CARBON DIOXIDE and the effect GLOBAL WARMING. I don’t really get the “thwarting” bit (to me, ‘thwarting’ is a deliberate action rather than the side effect which the carbon dioxide has been historically) – so I wonder whether there’s something else going on that I haven’t spotted.

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From Guardian Prize Crossword Saturday 5 July 2008
Common abbreviations used
dd = double definition
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
*(fodder) = anagram
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