Cap and trade policy implies that

Cap and trade policy implies that

Задание №6537.
Чтение. ЕГЭ по английскому

Прочитайте текст и запишите в поле ответа цифру 1, 2, 3 или 4, соответствующую выбранному Вами варианту ответа.

‘Most people thought that the risks were going to be for certain species and poor people. But all of a sudden the European heatwave of 2003 comes along and kills 50,000 people; [Hurricane] Katrina comes along and there’s a lot of data about the increased intensity of droughts and floods. Plus, the dramatic melting of Greenland that nobody can explain certainly has to increase your concern,’ says climatologist Stephen Schneider of Stanford University, who co-authored the research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences as well as in several IPCC reports. ‘Everywhere we looked, there was evidence that what was believed to be likely has happened. Nature has been cooperating with climate change theory unfortunately.’

Schneider and his colleagues updated a graph, dubbed the ‘burning embers,’ that is designed to map the risks of damage from global warming. The initial version of the graph drawn in 2001 had the risks of climate change beginning to appear after 3.6 or 5.4 degrees F (2 to 3 degrees C) of warming, but the years since have shown that climate risks kick in with less warming.

According to the new graph, risks to ‘unique and threatened systems’ such as coral reefs and risks of extreme weather events become likely when temperatures rise by as little as 1.8 degrees F from 1990 levels, which is on course to occur by mid-century given the current concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases. In addition, risks of negative consequences such as increased droughts and the complete melting of ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica definitively outweigh any potential positives, such as longer growing seasons in countries such as Canada and Russia.

‘We’re definitely going to overshoot some of these temperatures where we see these very large vulnerabilities manifest,’ says economist Gary Yohe of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., another co-author. ‘We’re going to have to learn how to adapt.’ Adaptation notwithstanding, Yohe and Schneider say that scientists must also figure out a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to reverse the heating trend to prevent further damage.

Several bills pending in Congress would set a so-called cap-and-trade policy under which an overall limit on pollution would be set — and companies with low output could sell their allowances to those that fail to cut emissions as long as the total stays within the total pollution cap. Any such federal policy would put a price on carbon dioxide pollution, which is currently free to vent into the atmosphere, Yohe note. He, however, favours a so-called carbon tax that would set a fixed price for such climate-changing pollution rather than the cap-and-trade proposals favoured by the Obama administration. ‘It’s a predictable price, not a thing that bounces around.’

But even with such policies in place—not only in the U.S. but across the globe—climate change is a foregone conclusion. Global average temperatures have already risen by at least 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit (0.6 degree C) and further warming of at least 0.7 degree F (0.4 degree C) is virtually certain, according to the IPCC. And a host of studies, including a recent one from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have shown that global warming is already worse than predicted even a few years ago. The question is: ‘Will it be catastrophic or not?’ ‘We’ve dawdled, and if we dawdle more, it will get even worse,’ Schneider says. ‘It’s time to move.’

(Adapted from ‘Risks of Global Warming Rising» by David Biello)

Cap-and-trade policy implies that
1) companies will have to cut their emissions.
2) companies could sell their emissions.
3) the overall amount of emissions must stay within a certain limit.
4) companies will have to pay a fixed carbon tax.

Решение:
Cap-and-trade policy implies that the overall amount of emissions must stay within a certain limit.
Политика ограничения выбросов и торговли подразумевает, что общий объем выбросов должен оставаться в определенных пределах.

«. cap-and-trade policy under which an overall limit on pollution would be set. »

Источник: ЕГЭ-2018, английский язык: 30 тренировочных вариантов для подготовки к ЕГЭ. Е. С. Музланова
Сообщить об ошибке

Cap and trade policy implies that

‘Most people thought that the risks were going to be for certain species and poor people. But all of a sudden the European heatwave of 2003 comes along and kills 50,000 people; [Hurricane] Katrina comes along and there’s a lot of data about the increased intensity of droughts and floods. Plus, the dramatic melting of Greenland that nobody can explain certainly has to increase your concern, ’ says climatologist Stephen Schneider of Stanford University, who co-authored the research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences as well as in several IPCC reports. ‘Everywhere we looked, there was evidence that what was believed to be likely has happened. Nature has been cooperating with climate change theory unfortunately.’

Schneider and his colleagues updated a graph, dubbed the ‘burning embers, ’ that is designed to map the risks of damage from global warming. The initial version of the graph drawn in 2001 had the risks of climate change beginning to appear after 3.6 or 5.4 degrees F (2 to 3 degrees C) of warming, but the years since have shown that climate risks kick in with less warming.

According to the new graph, risks to ‘unique and threatened systems’ such as coral reefs and risks of extreme weather events become likely when temperatures rise by as little as 1.8 degrees F from 1990 levels, which is on course to occur by mid-century given the current concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases. In addition, risks of negative consequences such as increased droughts and the complete melting of ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica definitively outweigh any potential positives, such as longer growing seasons in countries such as Canada and Russia.

‘We’re definitely going to overshoot some of these temperatures where we see these very large vulnerabilities manifest, ’ says economist Gary Yohe of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., another co-author. ‘We’re going to have to learn how to adapt.’Adaptation notwithstanding, Yohe and Schneider say that scientists must also figure out a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to reverse the heating trend to prevent further damage.

But even with such policies in place-not only in the U.S. but across the globe-climate change is a foregone conclusion. Global average temperatures have already risen by at least 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit (0.6 degree C) and further warming of at least 0.7 degree F (0.4 degree C) is virtually certain, according to the IPCC. And a host of studies, including a recent one from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have shown that global warming is already worse than predicted even a few years ago. The question is: ‘Will it be catastrophic or not?’ ‘We’ve dawdled, and if we dawdle more, it will get even worse, ’Schneider says. ‘It’s time to move.’

(Adapted from ‘Risks of Global Warming Rising“ by David Biello)

Cap and Trade

What Is Cap and Trade?

Cap and trade is a common term for a government regulatory program designed to limit, or cap, the total level of emissions of certain chemicals, particularly carbon dioxide, as a result of industrial activity.

Proponents of cap and trade argue that it is a palatable alternative to a carbon tax. Both measures are attempts to reduce environmental damage without causing undue economic hardship to the industry.

Key Takeaways

Understanding Cap and Trade

A cap and trade program can work in a number of ways, but here are the basics. The government sets the limit, or «cap» on emissions permitted across a given industry. It issues a limited number of annual permits that allow companies to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide and related pollutants that drive global warming. Other pollutants that contribute to smog can also be capped.

The total amount of the cap is split into allowances. Each allowance permits a company to emit one ton of emissions. The government distributes the allowances to the companies, either for free or through an auction.

But the government lowers the number of permits each year, thereby lowering the total emissions cap. That makes the permits more expensive. Over time, companies have an incentive to reduce their emissions more efficiently and invest in clean technology as it becomes cheaper than buying permits.

Companies are taxed if they produce a higher level of emissions than their permits allow. They may even be penalized for a violation. On the other hand, companies that reduce their emissions can sell allowances («trade» them) to other companies that pollute more. They can also bank them for future use.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Cap and Trade

The cap and trade system is sometimes described as a market system. That is, it creates an exchange value for emissions. Since companies that have emissions credits can sell them for extra profit, this creates a new economic resource for industries.

Its proponents argue that a cap and trade program offers an incentive for companies to invest in cleaner technologies in order to avoid buying permits that will increase in cost every year. It also motivates companies to fund research into alternative energy resources.

This process may lead to faster cuts in pollution, since companies that cut their emission levels faster are somehow rewarded as can then sell their allowance to other companies.

Because the government can decide to auction emissions credits to the highest bidder, cap and trade is also a revenue source for the government, since it has the power to auction emissions credits to the highest bidder. This new revenue can cover infrastructure needs, social programs, be invested in cleaner technologies, or it can even be a way to solve a budget deficit at the state or national level.

As a free trade system, cap and trade gives consumers more choices as well. Consumers can choose not to purchase from companies that are out of compliance, and do business with those that are trying to reduce their pollution levels.

Finally, the cap and trade system also has benefits for the taxpayers. The government sells emission credits to businesses that need them. The income generated helps to supplement the resources that taxpayers are providing the government.

Opponents of cap and trade argue that it could lead to an overproduction of pollutants up to the maximum levels set by the government each year, since allowable levels may be set too generously, actually slowing the move to cleaner energy.

Also, emissions credits (and even penalties and fines for exceeding the cap limit) are usually cheaper than converting to cleaner technologies and resources. This is the case, for example, for industries that use fossil fuels. This means that cap and trade is not a real incentive for those industries to change their practices.

It’s also argued that the «trade» mechanism is not always followed. Some credits are sold at auctions to the highest bidder, or even given away. This means it costs a company nothing to increase its emissions.

Most industries don’t have devices that help monitor and determine their amount of emissions. This makes it relatively easy for businesses to cheat on their emissions reports. For the cap trade system to be effective, monitoring systems must be implemented so that enforcement can take place.

Since renewable energy resources are still relatively new, they are also expensive. Products sold by companies that conform to the cap rules tend to be more costly to produce, affecting what consumers pay for them.

Finally, each country has different standards and maximum caps for emissions. Some may be very lenient and permit higher levels of pollution, while others may be very strict. Unless a global cap and trade system is established, it won’t be effective globally and there may be little impact on the number of emissions spilled out into the atmosphere every year.

Income source for companies

Promotes cleaner technologies

Leads to faster cuts in pollution

Source of revenue for the government

Suplements taxpayers resources

Gives consumers the power to decide

Allowed emissions levels are set too high

Credits and penalties and are cheaper than converting to cleaner technologies

Some credits are given away

Companies can cheat the system

It increases the prices for goods and services

There is no global consistency in the system

Challenges for Cap and Trade

One challenge in establishing a cap and trade policy is the ability of governments to impose the correct cap on the producers of emissions. A cap that is too high may lead to even higher emissions, while a cap that is too low would be seen as a burden on the industry and a cost that would be passed on to consumers.

There is also an overall lack of reliable data on emissions. The estimates for past and current emissions, as well as predictions for future emissions, vary widely among industries. A cap and trade system may be useless until accurate information on emissions is available, which involves a costly process and can take years to complete.

Apart from the lack of reliable emission data, there are also many methodological challenges when it comes to applying an effective cap and trade system: the difficulty to achieve an international consensus on emissions and caps since each country has different priorities, or the high transaction and administrative costs involved, among others.

Finally, predicting the long-term effects and benefits of cape and trade initiatives is also a great challenge.

Although cap and trade systems reduce emissions and can lead to faster cuts in pollution, they also tend to increase the price of oil, coal, and natural gas in an effort to force companies to switch to alternative forms of energy. These initiatives are expensive and impact negatively the economy.

Cap and Trade Examples

In 2005, the European Union (EU) created the world’s first international cap and trade program with the goal of reducing carbon emissions. In 2019, the EU estimated that there would be a 21% reduction in emissions from sectors covered by the system by 2020.

During the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, a clean energy bill that included a cap and trade program was introduced in Congress. It was eventually approved by the House of Representatives but never even got to a vote in the Senate.

The state of California introduced its own cap-and-trade program in 2013. The program was initially limited to fewer than 400 businesses, including power plants, large industrial plants, and fuel distributors. Its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 was successfully met in 2016.

Mexico is running a pilot cap-and-trade program that the country began in January 2020. This is the first emissions trading pilot program in Latin America, and it aims to move to full operations in 2018. The country committed to a 22% reduction in greenhouse gasses by 2030.

Does Cap and Trade Really Work?

The effectiveness of cap and trade is constantly under debate. Cap and trade aims to reduce carbon emissions by putting a price on them, thus mitigating climate change. Those well-designed cap and trade initiatives have proven to be not only environmentally effective, but also cost-effective, since those companies that bank the excess allowances (or amount of the cap) can reduce significantly their costs.

In California, for example, the program met some initial benchmarks and inspired many other similar initiatives across the world. But some claim that the biggest oil and gas companies in the state have actually polluted more since the program started. Experts are increasingly worried that the cap and trade initiative is in reality allowing California’s biggest polluters to conduct business as usual and even increase their emissions.

An analysis conducted by ProPublica showed that carbon emissions from California’s oil and gas industry actually rose 3.5% since cap and trade began, and that emissions from vehicles, which burn the fuels processed in refineries, are also rising.

Carbon Tax vs. Cap and Trade

A carbon tax directly establishes a price on greenhouse gas emissions—so companies are charged a dollar amount for every ton of emissions they produce—whereas a cap and trade program issues a set number of emissions “allowances” each year. These allowances can be auctioned to the highest bidder as well as traded on secondary markets, creating a carbon price.

If well designed, either a carbon tax or a cap and trade program can be key elements for the U.S. in its effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Is Cap and Trade Used?

Yes. Today, cap and trade is used or being developed worldwide.

For example, European countries have been implementing a cap and trade program
since 2005, the Chinese government is working toward a national cap program and currently, several Chinese cities and provinces have had carbon caps
since 2013. Eleven states in the U.S. participate in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade program established in 2009.

Is Cap and Trade Bad?

Although cap and trade aims to reduce emissions and pollution, it has some drawbacks affecting the economy. When implemented it leads to an increase in the cost of energy.

Is Cap and Trade Successful?

The proponents of cap and trade argue that well-designed cap and trade systems have proven to be environmentally effective and cost-effective. When a company has effective emissions monitoring systems and complies with regulations, a cap trade initiative can be beneficial not only for the environment for also for the economy, since banking the excess allowances can reduce significantly a company’s costs.

How Did Cap and Trade Work in California?

California began operating a cap-and-trade program in 2013, and as of 2022, it is one of the largest emissions trading systems in the world. The ambitious program aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 (a goal that was met in 2016), and now aims to reduce the emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2030, and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. California also has additional goals of achieving 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045 and economy-wide carbon neutrality by 2045.

ЕГЭ: Задание 44 на текст и выбор ответов на вопросы к тексту

Прочитайте текст и выберите правильные ответы к данным ниже вопросам. Проверьте себя по ключу.

The risk of catastrophic climate change is getting worse, according to a new study from scientists involved with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Threats — ranging from the destruction of coral reefs to more extreme weather events like hurricanes, droughts and floods — are becoming more likely at the temperature change already underway: as little as 1.8 degree Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) of warming in global average temperatures.

‘Most people thought that the risks were going to be for certain species and poor people. But all of a sudden the European heatwave of 2003 comes along and kills 50,000 people; [Hurricane] Katrina comes along and there’s a lot of data about the increased intensity of droughts and floods. Plus, the dramatic melting of Greenland that nobody can explain certainly has to increase your concern,’ says climatologist Stephen Schneider of Stanford University, who co-authored the research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences as well as in several IPCC reports. ‘Everywhere we looked, there was evidence that what was believed to be likely has happened. Nature has been cooperating with climate change theory unfortunately.’

Schneider and his colleagues updated a graph, dubbed the ‘burning embers,’ that is designed to map the risks of damage from global warming. The initial version of the graph drawn in 2001 had the risks of climate change beginning to appear after 3.6 or 5.4 degrees F (2 to 3 degrees C) of warming, but the years since have shown that climate risks kick in with less warming.

According to the new graph, risks to ‘unique and threatened systems’ such as coral reefs and risks of extreme weather events become likely when temperatures rise by as little as 1.8 degrees F from 1990 levels, which is on course to occur by mid-century given the current concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases. In addition, risks of negative consequences such as increased droughts and the complete melting of ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica definitively outweigh any potential positives, such as longer growing seasons in countries such as Canada and Russia.

‘We’re definitely going to overshoot some of these temperatures where we see these very large vulnerabilities manifest,’ says economist Gary Yohe of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., another co-author. ‘We’re going to have to learn how to adapt.’ Adaptation notwithstanding, Yohe and Schneider say that scientists must also figure out a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to reverse the heating trend to prevent further damage.

Several bills pending in Congress would set a so-called cap-and-trade policy under which an overall limit on pollution would be set — and companies with low output could sell their allowances to those that fail to cut emissions as long as the total stays within the total pollution cap. Any such federal policy would put a price on carbon dioxide pollution, which is currently free to vent into the atmosphere, Yohe note. He, however, favours a so-called carbon tax that would set a fixed price for such climate-changing pollution rather than the cap-and-trade proposals favoured by the Obama administration. ‘It’s a predictable price, not a thing that bounces around.’

But even with such policies in place—not only in the U.S. but across the globe—climate change is a foregone conclusion. Global average temperatures have already risen by at least 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit (0.6 degree C) and further warming of at least 0.7 degree F (0.4 degree C) is virtually certain, according to the IPCC. And a host of studies, including a recent one from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have shown that global warming is already worse than predicted even a few years ago. The question is: ‘Will it be catastrophic or not?’ ‘We’ve dawdled, and if we dawdle more, it will get even worse,’ Schneider says. ‘It’s time to move.’

ВОПРОС 1 The current temperature change
1) is less than it was predicted.
2) is too little to cause any concern.
3) makes natural disasters more probable.
4) has caused the catastrophic climate change.

ВОПРОС 2 According to Stephen Schneider, people should be more worried because
1) the heat wave is going to kill more people.
2) the intensity of floods and drought will increase in the near future.
3) nobody can explain the dramatic melting of Greenland.
4) nature has proved the climate change theory.

ВОПРОС 3 In paragraph 3 ‘dubbed’ means
1) added.
2) labelled.
3) doubled.
4) showed.

ВОПРОС 4 According to the updated graph, risks of negative consequences begin to appear
1) when the temperature change reaches 1 degree C.
2) when temperatures rise by as little as 1.8 degree С from 1990 levels.
3) after 3.6 degrees F of warming.
4) after 3 degrees С of warming.

ВОПРОС 5 Global warming has
1) only negative consequences.
2) only positive consequences.
3) more negative than positive consequences.
4) more positive than negative consequences.

ВОПРОС 6 Cap-and-trade policy implies that
1) companies will have to cut their emissions.
2) companies could sell their emissions.
3) the overall amount of emissions must stay within a certain limit.
4) companies will have to pay a fixed carbon tax.

ВОПРОС 7 According to the IPCC, global warming
1) is no worse than predicted a few years ago.
2) will have catastrophic effect.
3) is still uncertain.
4) is inevitable.

ВОПРОС 1: – 3
ВОПРОС 2: – 4
ВОПРОС 3: – 2
ВОПРОС 4: – 1
ВОПРОС 5: – 3
ВОПРОС 6: – 3
ВОПРОС 7: – 4

Линия заданий 17, ЕГЭ по английскому языку

As Andrea turned off the motorway onto the road to Brockbourne, the small village in which she lived, it was four o’clock in the afternoon, but already the sun was falling behind the hills. At this time in December, it would be completely dark by five o’clock.

Andrea shivered. The interior of the car was not cold, but the trees bending in the harsh wind and the patches of yesterday’s snow still heaped in the fields made her feel chilly inside. It was another ten miles to the cottage where she lived with her husband Michael, and the dim light and wintry weather made her feel a little lonely.

She was just coming out of the little village of Mickley when she saw an old lady, standing by the road, with a crude hand-written sign saying ‘Brockbourne’ in her hand.

Andrea was surprised. She had never seen an old lady hitchhiking before. However, the weather and the coming darkness made her feel sorry for the lady, waiting hopefully on a country road like this with little traffic. Normally, Andrea would never pick up a hitchhiker when she was alone, thinking it was too dangerous, but what was the harm in doing a favor for a little old lady like this? Andrea pulled up a little way down the road, and the lady, holding a big shopping bag, hurried over to climb in the door which Andrea had opened for her.

When she did get in, Andrea could see that she was not, in fact, so little. Broad and fat, the old lady had some difficulty climbing in through the car door, with her big bag, and when she had got in, she more than filled the seat next to Andrea. She wore a long, shabby old dress, and she had a yellow hat pulled down low over her eyes. Panting noisily from her effort, she pushed her big brown canvas shopping bag down onto the floor under her feet, and said in a voice which was almost a whisper, ‘Thank you dearie. I’m just going to Brockbourne.’

‘Do you live there?’ asked Andrea, thinking that she had never seen the old lady in the village in the four years she had lived there herself. ‘No, dearie, ’ answered the passenger, in her soft voice, ‘I’m just going to visit a friend. He was supposed to meet me back there at Mickley, but his car won’t start, so I decided to hitchhike. I knew some kind soul would give me a lift.’

At first, she didn’t know what to do. Then suddenly, an idea came into her terrified brain. Swinging the wheel suddenly, she threw the car into a skid, and brought it toa halt. ‘My God!’ she shouted, ‘A child! Did you see the child? I think I hit her!’ The ‘old lady’ was clearly shaken by the sudden skid. ‘I didn’t see anything dearie, ’ she said. ‘I don’t think you hit anything.’ ‘I’m sure it was a child!’ insisted Andrea. ‘Could you just get out and have a look? Just see if there’s anything on the road?’ She held her breath. Would her plan work?

It did. The passenger slowly opened the car door, leaving her bag inside, and climbed out to investigate. As soon as she was out of the vehicle, Andrea gunned the engine and soon she had put a good three miles between herself and the awful hitchhiker.

(Adapted from ‘The Hitchhiker’, a common urban legend)

I look at the long white envelope with my name printed neatly in the centre, its edges slightly curled as though to fend off the surrounding army of clutter on the desk. An intruder. A foreign object.

I go down the stairs and open the main doors. Can’t keep the public waiting. Today is much like any other day. In amongst the structure of routine women drift like ghosts amid the lingerie, touching here, feeling there while husbands linger on the periphery of their erratic orbits, faces masked with bored indifference; in the homeware section, tweed-skirted ladies lift the lids on teapots; sniff, like careful poodles at bowls of Pot Porri, turn everything upside down to check the price and replace it quickly at the approach of an eager assistant. The sun streams through the plate glass windows in great broad beams, igniting every chrome fitting, while tired and wayward children are narrowly missed by my trolley’s wheels.

At 11 o’clock I go to the meeting with Mr. Radcliffe, the manager. He is a fat man, and the smallest motion on his part induces him to break into a sweat. He sits across the desk from me with the air of a man who has never dared to look a day in the eye. He speaks quickly and a little pompously, his eyes drifting toward the clock on the wall more often than my face. He says his words carefully, as though trying to pull each one down with the gravity of his tone. He endeavours to grant some words such as ‘free time’, ‘benefit package’, ‘pension fund’, ‘hobbies’ and ‘exemplary service’ an even greater weight of importance, but succeeds only in sweating some more as he glances to the clock.

It’s dusk now and the store is quiet again. The kettle rocks gently on the metal frame of the stove. I glance around my room; the rows of books and piles of magazines, the ancient portable television, the radio. I have very few real possessions. What, really, does one man need? I’ve brought the things little by little from the flat. Now I think I have all that is required. I suppose, on occasion, they have suspected I stay here through the night, but that doesn’t bother me. It was a relief to let the flat go completely, I never felt at home there.

I have taken the retirement letter from its envelope and dropped it onto the worn lino. Now it lies there like a broken kite. I will sit here; wait until the mice come out from their hidden places to nibble at its corners and eat its words.

(Adapted from ‘Harry’s World’ by Steve Atkinson)

Since he was a boy, Sean Ireton has been an ardent hiker, climbing mountain trails all over the world. Even on family trips, it was typical for him to take a day by himself to knock off a tempting peak. In January 2009, he and his wife, Megan, planned a two-week backpacking adventure in Spain with their son, Aidan. They took off in December and spent their days touring and hiking in the southern mountains, making time to sample the regional cuisine and enjoy the country’s robust red wines along the way. Sean was looking forward especially to a solo hike on El Mulhacén, a rocky knob in Spain’s Sierra Nevada and, at 3478m, the highest peak on the Spanish mainland. From Mulhacén on a clear day you could see all the way across the Mediterranean to Morocco.

When they got near Pradollano, a ski village near Mulhacén, the family pitched their tent in the woods. At this time of year, the mountain’s snowy trails were well packed and straightforward, requiring a hiker to travel at only a moderate clip to reach Mulhacén’s broad summit in about four hours. Early the next morning, Sean put on several layers of warm clothes and set out under a purple and golden sunrise.

Now it was dark, and Sean’s wife and son lay in their tent and worried. ‘When is Dad coming back?’ Aidan asked Megan over and over. ‘Why isn’t he back yet?’

“He’ll be back soon, sweetie, ’ his mother reassured him. In the past her husband had returned late from excursions. But this was pushing it, so sometime after midnight, Megan got up and took Aidan into town to look for help. The ordinarily lively village was deserted, the motionless chairlifts hanging eerily in the dark. Megan didn’t speak Spanish, and a hotel clerk’s directions just sent them in circles. They had to wait till morning. ‘Aidan was so upset, ’ Megan recalls. ‘He sensed something was wrong. He had that child’s intuition.’

Sean had neared Mulhacén’s summit by mid-afternoon but turned around a few hundred metres from the top when the trail became dangerously steep and icy. Clouds blew in as he descended, and he veered off track. By the time he realised his mistake, daylight was fading, and it had begun to drizzle. ‘I was getting wet, and it was growing dark fast, ’ he recalls. Luckily, he spied a crude stone shelter nearby. ‘I didn’t want to get lost and end up on the other side of the mountain, so I decided to spend the night in the hut.’

Inside, it was dark and clammy, but there was a table, wooden bunks, and even some foam padding for a bed. Sean ate a chocolate bar from his backpack, and settled in. It would be an easy hike back to camp in the morning, and he imagined his family’s relief when he returned unharmed.

Sean was on foot again by 6 a.m., tracking his way across a broad bow! and up a steep, snowy slope. On the other side of the ridge there was the ski area, and from there he could practically jog down the slopes. He made good progress until a storm suddenly swept over the ridge and nearly blew him off his feet. In minutes, he was caught in a white-out. ‘If I can just make the ridge, I’m home free, ’ Sean thought, as he powered forward, bending against the gale.

But the ridge never appeared, and Sean knew it was crazy to stay on the exposed slope. He’d have to find an alternative route. He had no idea where he was but thought he could make out a trail still farther below.

He gingerly inspected the wound. With effort, he got back on his feet, but his injured leg buckled beneath him, and he fell face-first into the snow. He felt a hot surge of alarm. He was kilometres away from help, and certainly no one would come through this area for days, maybe weeks. He sat in the snow, on the verge of despair.

(Adapted from ‘Missing’ by Nick Heil)

‘Most people thought that the risks were going to be for certain species and poor people. But all of a sudden the European heatwave of 2003 comes along and kills 50,000 people; [Hurricane] Katrina comes along and there’s a lot of data about the increased intensity of droughts and floods. Plus, the dramatic melting of Greenland that nobody can explain certainly has to increase your concern, ’ says climatologist Stephen Schneider of Stanford University, who co-authored the research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences as well as in several IPCC reports. ‘Everywhere we looked, there was evidence that what was believed to be likely has happened. Nature has been cooperating with climate change theory unfortunately.’

Schneider and his colleagues updated a graph, dubbed the ‘burning embers, ’ that is designed to map the risks of damage from global warming. The initial version of the graph drawn in 2001 had the risks of climate change beginning to appear after 3.6 or 5.4 degrees F (2 to 3 degrees C) of warming, but the years since have shown that climate risks kick in with less warming.

According to the new graph, risks to ‘unique and threatened systems’ such as coral reefs and risks of extreme weather events become likely when temperatures rise by as little as 1.8 degrees F from 1990 levels, which is on course to occur by mid-century given the current concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases. In addition, risks of negative consequences such as increased droughts and the complete melting of ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica definitively outweigh any potential positives, such as longer growing seasons in countries such as Canada and Russia.

‘We’re definitely going to overshoot some of these temperatures where we see these very large vulnerabilities manifest, ’ says economist Gary Yohe of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., another co-author. ‘We’re going to have to learn how to adapt.’Adaptation notwithstanding, Yohe and Schneider say that scientists must also figure out a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to reverse the heating trend to prevent further damage.

But even with such policies in place-not only in the U.S. but across the globe-climate change is a foregone conclusion. Global average temperatures have already risen by at least 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit (0.6 degree C) and further warming of at least 0.7 degree F (0.4 degree C) is virtually certain, according to the IPCC. And a host of studies, including a recent one from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have shown that global warming is already worse than predicted even a few years ago. The question is: ‘Will it be catastrophic or not?’ ‘We’ve dawdled, and if we dawdle more, it will get even worse, ’Schneider says. ‘It’s time to move.’

(Adapted from ‘Risks of Global Warming Rising“ by David Biello)

Arriving home after her part-time job at Burger King, Lykesia Lilly planned to shoot some hoops. It was late afternoon on a Sunday. Maybe she’d even play some one-on-one with her little nephew Adrian before supper. But when Lilly asked her sister where the boy was, her casual question was met with concern. ‘I was outside looking for him because his dad and I realized we hadn’t seen him in a while, ’ recalls Adrian’s mother, Stephanie Crump. ‘He was supposed to be playing at a house down the street, but when we called, he wasn’t there.’

In their tiny, rural community of Burnsville, North Carolina, kids still run freely from yard to yard, popping in and out of single-story brick houses with tree-lined lawns. Even traffic poses little threat. The hamlet’s centre consists of a single blinking caution light and two stores. But on that sunny May afternoon, six-year-old Adrian Clark seemed to have simply vanished. Much of his close and extended family joined in a frantic search, combing the neighbourhood and the energetic first grader’s usual play spots.

Crump and Adrian’s father, Dale Clark, lowered Lilly down the shaft as far as they could, then let go. The well got wider part of the way down, and she slid past her nephew and into the water below. Fortunately, Lilly instinctively pushed off the bottom, 12 feet underwater, and surfaced just under Adrian. ‘I got focused, ’ she says. With the water level just under her nose, Lilly then bolstered her 100-pound nephew, who was shaking in his soaking clothes. With one arm, she grabbed the cord that Adrian’s father was dangling from above and tied it around Adrian’s waist. ‘I was pushing him and holding on with my legs while they were pulling, ’ Lilly says. ‘Somehow they got him out.’

Lilly herself was pulled out just as the rescue squad arrived. Both Adrian and Lilly were taken to the hospital, where he was blanketed with heat packs to ward off hypothermia and she was treated for bruises and lacerations. County workers sealed the well for good a few days later.

Lilly and Adrian have been uniquely close since the rescue. ‘He reminds me all the time, ’ she says fondly. ‘He’ll say, ‘Thank you, Auntie, for saving me.’ And he’ll hug me. Just out of the blue.

(Adapted from ‘Leaps of Faith’ by Joanna Powell)

There were three of them. There were four of us, and April lay on the campsite and on the river. This was Deer Lodge on the Pine River in New Hampshire. Brother Bentley’s father had found this place sometime after the First World War, a foreign affair that had seriously done him no good but he found solitude abounding here. Now we were here, post World War II, post Korean War, Vietnam War on the brink. Peace was everywhere about us, in the riot of young leaves, in the spree of bird confusion and chatter, in the struggle of pre-dawn animals for the start of a new day.

We had pitched our camp in the near darkness, Ed LeBlanc, Brother Bentley, Walter Ruszkowski and myself. A dozen or more years we had been here and seen no one. Now, into our campsite deep in the forest came an old van. Two elderly men sat in the front seat, felt hats at the slouch and decorated with an assortment of tied flies. ‘Morning, been yet?’ one of them said as he pulled his boots up from the folds at his knees. His hands were large, the fingers long and I could picture them in a shop barn working a primal plane across the face of a maple board.

‘Barely had coffee, ’ Ed LeBlanc said, the most vocal of the four of us, quickest at friendship, at shaking hands. ‘We’ve got a whole pot almost. Have what you want.’ The pot was pointed out sitting on a hunk of grill across the stones of our fire, flames licking lightly at its sides. When we fished the Pine River, coffee was the glue, the morning glue, the late evening glue, even though we’d often unearth our beer from a natural cooler in early evening. Camp coffee has a ritual. It is thick, it is potboiled over a squaw-pine fire, it is strong enough to wake the demon in you. But into that pot has to go fresh eggshells to hold the grounds down, give coffee a taste of history, a sense of place. That means at least one egg must be cracked open for its shells. I suspect that’s where ‘scrambled eggs’ originated, from some camp like ours.

‘You’re early enough for eggs and bacon if you need a start.’ Eddie added, his invitation tossed kindly into the morning air. ‘We have hot cakes and home fries, if you want.’ ‘Been there already, ’ the other man said, his weaponry also noted by us, a little more orderly in its presentation, including an old Boy Scout sash across his chest and the galaxy of flies in supreme positioning. They were old Yankees, in the face and frame, the pair of them undoubtedly brothers. They were taller than we were, no fat on their frames, wideshouldered, big-handed, barely coming out of their reserve, but fishermen. That fact alone would win any of us over.

Then the pounding came from inside the truck and the voice of authority from some place in space, some regal spot in the universe. ‘I’m not sitting here the livelong day whilst you boys gab away.’ ‘Coming, pa, ’ one of them said, the most orderly one. They pulled open the back doors of the van, swung them wide, to show His Venerable Self, ageless, white-bearded, felt hat too loaded with an arsenal of flies, sitting on a white wicker rocker. Across his lap he held three delicate fly rods, old as him, thin, bamboo in colour, probably too slight for a lake’s three-pounder.

Rods were taken from the caring hands and His Venerable Self was lifted from the truck and set by our campfire. The old one looked about the campsite, noted clothes drying from a previous day’s rain, order of equipment and supplies aligned the way we always kept them, the canvas of our tent taut and true in its expanse, our fishing rods off the ground and placed atop the flyleaf so as not to tempt raccoons with smelly cork handles, no garbage in sight. He nodded. We had passed muster.

“You the ones leave it cleaner than you find it every year. We knew something about you. Never disturbed you before. But we share the good spots.’ He looked closely at Brother Bentley, nodded a kind of recognition. ‘Your daddy ever fish here, son?’ Brother must have passed through the years in a hurry, remembering his father bringing him here as a boy. ‘A ways back, ’ Brother said in his clipped North Saugus fashion, outlander, specific, no waste in his words.

(Adapted from ‘The Three Fishermen’ by Tom Sheehan)

Lisa Donath was running late. Heading down the sidewalk towards her subway stop, she decided to skip her usual espresso. Donath had a lot to do at work, plus visitors on the way. But as she hustled down the stairs and through the long tunnel, she started to feel uncomfortably warm. By the time she got to the platform, Donath felt faint. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to give blood the night before, she thought. She leaned heavily against a post close to the tracks.

Several yards away, Ismael Feneque and his girlfriend, Melina Gonzalez, found a spot close to where the front of the train would stop. Feneque and Gonzalez were deep in dis- cussion about a house they were thinking of buying. But when he heard the scream, fol- lowed by someone yelling, ‘Oh, my God, she fell in!’, Feneque didn’t hesitate. He jumped down to the tracks and ran some 40 feet towards the body sprawled facedown on the rails.

‘No! Not you!’ his girlfriend screamed after him. She was right to be alarmed. By the time Feneque reached Donath, he could ‘feel the vibration on the tracks and see the light coming into the tunnel, ’ he remembers. ‘The train was maybe 20 seconds from the station.’ In that instant, Feneque gave himself a mission, ‘I’m going to get her out, and then I’m going to get myself out, as soon as possible. I’m not going to let myself get killed here.’

Feneque, for his part, couldn’t stop wondering what had happened to the woman on the tracks. He went on his own hunt, posting a message on a newspaper website asking if anyone knew whether the woman who had fallen in the subway had survived. No one responded. Several weeks later, while surfing the Internet for any new clues. bingo! A television station had posted an update on its website, detailing Donath’s recovery and her search for her rescuer. Feneque e-mailed the address provided to say that he was that man.

When the two first met, Donath threw her arms around Feneque and wept. It was overwhelming, she says, to try to convey her feelings. When they met again several months later, it felt a lot easier. ‘I finally had the chance to hear his side of the story in detail, ’ she says.

(Adapted from ‘Subway Rescue’ by Mitch Lipka)

Ill a first-class carriage of a train speeding Balkanward two Britons sat in friendly, fitful converse. They had first foregathered in the cold grey dawn at the frontier line, where the presiding eagle takes on an extra head and Teuton lands pass from Hohenzollern to Habsburg. After a day’s break of their journey at Vienna the travellers had again foregathered at the train side and paid one another the compliment of settling instinctively into the same carriage. The elder of the two was a wine businessman. The other was certainly a journalist. Neither man was talkative and each was grateful to the other for not being talkative. That is why from time to time they talked.

One topic of conversation naturally thrust itself forward in front of all others. In Vienna the previous day they had learned of the mysterious vanishing of a world-famous picture from the Louvre.

‘A dramatic disappearance of that sort is sure to produce a crop of imitations, ’ said the Journalist.

‘I was thinking of the spiriting away of human beings rather than pictures. In particular I was thinking of the case of my aunt, Crispina Umberleigh.’

‘I remember hearing something of the affair, ’ said the Journalist, ‘but I was away from England at the time. I never quite knew what was supposed to have happened.’

‘You may hear what really happened if you respect it as a confidence, ’ said the Wine Merchant. ‘In the first place I may say that the disappearance of Mrs. Umberleigh was not regarded by the family entirely as bereavement. My uncle, Edward Umberleigh, was not by any means a weak-kneed individual, in fact in the world of politics he had to be reckoned as a strong man, but he was unmistakably dominated by Crispina. Some people are born to command. Mrs. Umberleigh was born to legislate, codify, administrate, censor, license, ban, execute, and sit in judgement generally. From the kitchen regions upwards everyone in the household came under her despotic sway and stayed there with the submissiveness of molluscs involved in a glacial epoch. Her sons and daughters stood in mortal awe of her. Their studies, friendships, diet, amusements, religious observances, and way of doing their hair were all regulated and ordained according to the august lady’s will and pleasure.

This will help you to understand the sensation of stupefaction which was caused in the family when she unobtrusively and inexplicably vanished. It was as though St. Paul’s Cathedral or the Piccadilly Hotel had disappeared in the night, leaving nothing but an open space to mark where it had stood.

As far as it was known, nothing was troubling her; in fact there was much before her to make life particularly well worth living. The youngest boy had come back from school with an unsatisfactory report, and she was to have sat in judgement on him the very afternoon of the day she disappeared. Then she was in the middle of a newspaper correspondence with a rural dean in which she had already proved him guilty of heresy, inconsistency, and unworthy quibbling, and no ordinary consideration would have induced her to discontinue the controversy. Of course the matter was put in the hands of the police, but as far as possible it was kept out of the papers, and the generally accepted explanation of her withdrawal from her social circle was that she had gone into a nursing home.’

‘Couldn’t your uncle get hold of the least clue?’

‘As a matter of fact, he had received some information, though of course I did not know of it at the time. He got a message one day telling him that his wife had been kidnapped and smuggled out of the country; she was said to be hidden away, on one of the islands off the coast of Norway I think she was in comfortable surroundings and well cared for. And with the information came a demand for money; a lump sum of 2000 pounds was to be paid yearly. Failing this she would be immediately restored to her family.’

The Journalist was silent for a moment, and then began to laugh quietly.

‘It was certainly an inverted form of holding to ransom, ’ he said. ‘Did your uncle succumb to it?’

‘Well, you see, for the family to have gone back into the Crispina thraldom after having tasted the delights of liberty would have been a tragedy, and there were even wider considerations to be taken into account. Since his bereavement he had unconsciously taken up a far bolder and more initiatory line in public affairs, and his popularity and influence had increased correspondingly. All this he knew would be jeopardised if he once more dropped into the social position of the husband of Mrs. Umberleigh. Of course, he had severe qualms of conscience about the arrangement. Later on, when he took me into his confidence, he told me that in paying the ransom he was partly influenced by the fear that if he refused it, the kidnappers might have vented their rage and disappointment on their captive. It was better, he said, to think of her being well cared for as a highly-valued payingguest on one of the Lofoden Islands than to have her struggling miserably home in a maimed and mutilated condition. Anyway he paid the yearly instalment as punctually as one pays fire insurance. And then, after a disappearance of more than eight years, Crispina returned with dramatic suddenness to the home she had left so mysteriously.’

‘She had given her captors the slip?’

‘She had never been captured. Her wandering away had been caused by a sudden and complete loss of memory. She usually dressed rather in the style of a superior kind of charwoman, and it was not so very surprising that she should have imagined that she was one. She had wandered as far afield as Birmingham, and found fairly steady employment there, her energy and enthusiasm in putting people’s rooms in order counterbalancing her obstinate and domineering characteristics. It was the shock of being patronisingly addressed as ‘my good woman’ by a curate who was disputing with her where the stove should be placed in a parish concert hall that led to the sudden restoration of her memory.’

‘But, ’ exclaimed the Journalist, ‘the Lofoden Island people! Who had they got hold of?’

‘A purely mythical prisoner. It was an attempt in the first place by someone who knew something of the domestic situation to bluff a lump sum out of Edward Umberleigh before the missing woman turned up. Here is Belgrad and another custom house.’

(Adapted from ‘The Disappearance Of Crispina Umberleigh’ by H. H. Munro)