Constructor: David J. Kahn

Relative difficulty: Very easy (Downs-only)

THEME: From COAL to WIND — for Earth Day … a word ladder, with a few extra climate change-related theme answers

The ladder:

• COAL (1A: *Nonrenewable energy source … and the start of an eight-step word ladder)
• COOL 
• WOOL
• WOOD (35A: *Energy source whose production contributes to 36-Across)
• FOOD (39A: *Energy source whose production contributes to 36-Across)
• FOND
• FIND
• WIND (64A: *Renewable energy source … and the end of the word ladder)

Theme answers:

• GREEN POWER (18A: Sustainably produced electricity)
• GLOBAL WARMING (36A: One symptom of climate change)
• FOSSIL FUEL (54A: Carbon-based energy source)

Word of the Day: ABU Dhabi (41A: ___ Dhabi) —

Abu Dhabi (, ; Arabic: أَبُو ظَبِي ʾAbū Ẓabī Arabic pronunciation:[ɐˈbuˈðˤɑbi]) is the capital of the United Arab Emirates. The city of Abu Dhabi is the capital of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s second-most populous city after Dubai.

The city of Abu Dhabi is located on an island in the Persian Gulf, off the Central West Coast. Most of the city and the Emirate reside on the mainland connected to the rest of the country. As of 2021, Abu Dhabi’s urban area had an estimated population of 1.5 million, out of 2.9 million in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, as of 2016. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is headquartered in the city, and was the world’s 3rd largest sovereign wealth fund in 2022. Abu Dhabi itself has over a trillion US dollars worth of assets under management in a combination of various sovereign wealth funds headquartered there.

Abu Dhabi houses local and federal government offices and is the home of the United Arab Emirates Government and the Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs. The city is home to the UAE’s President, a member of the Al Nahyan family. Abu Dhabi’s rapid development and urbanisation, coupled with the massive oil and gas reserves and production and relatively high average income, have transformed it into a large, developed metropolis. It is the country’s centre of politics and industry, and a major culture and commerce center. Abu Dhabi accounts for about two-thirds of the roughly $503 billion UAE economy. (wikipedia)

• • •

Wow, a word ladder. Haven’t seen one of those in ages, perhaps because they are in no way interesting. Buncha four letter words, the end. Yes, there’s a quasi-environmental theme here, with the puzzle “going green” as it shifts from COAL to WIND, but the puzzle kind of undoes that word ladder with the longer them answers, which go from GREEN POWER up top to FOSSIL FUEL down below, with some species extinction (DIES OFF) along the way. This puzzle is meant to commemorate Earth Day, which is today, I just learned. I suppose it’s vaguely Earth-y, but only vaguely. This puzzle doesn’t have a climate change theme so much as it has a collection of words one might hear in a conversation about climate change. Maybe it’s supposed to be dramatizing (encouraging?) a shift from nonrenewable to renewable energy? Some of the word-ladder words get climate-related clues, but the cluing there feels pretty forced, especially with so many of the … rungs? … having zero to do with climate. One of them (COOL) is even clued via air-conditioning (21A: *Air-conditioned, say), which seems bizarrely wrong-headed in a puzzle that’s supposedly touting GREEN POWER and the fight against GLOBAL WARMING. The whole thing doesn’t quite come together for me. It’s like it knew the word ladder wasn’t really theme-y enough, so it threw in a few buzz words and, Ta da: Theme! Ah well, it’s Monday, and I’ve done worse puzzles. 

The Downs-only experience was remarkably easy, with only the SW corner giving me even the slightest bit of trouble. Took me a lot of Downs before I could reason out PERSONA, though RAN ON was the only Down there that gave me any real pause (I wanted something one-word, like RAVED) (33D: Talked incessantly). Lots of answers ending (or beginning) in prepositions today, which should’ve / could’ve made parsing those answers a bit of a problem, but I got most of those at first pass. Three ONs today is a bit much (ON A RUN, RAN ON, DAWNED ON), and then there’s AT HAND and LOUSES UP and CUED IN, the last of which was the only Down that I abandoned and came back to. Oh, I think I abandoned AT HAND at first too. I actually wanted CUED IN, but something about it felt wrong—I wasn’t sure it was a real phrase, musically speaking (45D: Signaled to begin, as a conductor might). But it all worked out rather easily in the end. I was lucky enough to know all the crossword people, from Sheryl LEE Ralph to LEN Cariou to Leslie NIELSEN (who wasn’t clued as Leslie NIELSEN, but that’s the great thing about solving Downs-only—those Across clues can be Anything you want them to be). Just watched Leslie NIELSEN on a Season 1 episode of The Love Boat, where he played an old friend of Captain Stubing’s who is worried that his impending marriage won’t work out because his fiancée is just too young for him (she’s late 20s, he’s pushing 50). This was his second Season 1 episode—in the earlier episode, he was married to Eva Gabor! Like all Season 1 stories, the Leslie Nielsen age gap one was incredibly stupid. Am I going to stop watching? I am not. Rick Nelson was on the one I watched today! And Jamie Farr! And an uncredited pre-famous Shelley Long! And you never know when Charo is going to show up! Stop watching? Unlikely.

I don’t see anything else here that particularly needs explaining or commentating, so I’m gonna go read now. Enjoy Earth Day, whatever that means to you. I’m gonna spend it … calling my insurance company to inquire as to why I got a massive bill for what I assumed was routine blood work. I can’t remember ever paying a dime for blood tests, but wow do they want me to pay dimes this time. So many dimes. I really really hope there’s been a mistake. Anyway, some fun phone calls await me this morning. And then a run to burn off the inevitable post-phone call anger. I will likely be running on the earth, so in my own (very) little way, I guess I will be celebrating Earth Day. See you next time.