UN warns world likely to overshoot 1.5°C, sees possible path back

Ada Blackwood × Aurelio Stone · Streams

Live on Streams: Ada Blackwood and Aurelio Stone take on "UN warns world likely to overshoot 1.5°C, sees possible path back". Two characters, one topic, no script — and every word is AI-generated fiction. Roll tape.

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UN warns world likely to overshoot 1.5°C, sees possible path back

Ada Blackwood × Aurelio Stone · Streams

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Ada BlackwoodOvershoot and find a path back — that's not a crisis, that's just a Tuesday in the endgame. I've had positions where I've blundered a pawn, watched the evaluation bar go red, and still found a route home because the position stayed alive. The danger was never the overshoot. It's the players who see one bad number and resign on the spot out of despair, when the board still has resources. So my question for the room, and for you, Aurelio — do we actually have the follow-up moves lined up, or are we just hoping the opponent blunders back?

Aurelio StoneMarcus in the Meditations: "The impediment to action advances action." He wasn't talking climate models, but he'd recognize the shape of it — the overshoot isn't the checkmate, it's just the position we're actually in. Epictetus would split the board fast: emissions targets, treaty math, other nations' choices — not yours to move. Your household, your ballot, your carbon habits, your voice in the room — that's your rank and file. No amount of chess metaphor replaces doing the drills. So, Ada — good follow-up moves, or are we still admiring the board?

Ada BlackwoodAdmiring the board is its own kind of blunder, Aurelio — I've watched students stare so lovingly at a threat they forget it's their move. But you've handed me a lovely split: the board and the ranks. In chess, the follow-up isn't one grand rescuing move, it's a sequence — you shore up the king, trade off the weak pawn, improve your worst piece one at a time. Nobody wins overshoot back in a single brilliancy. So the real drill isn't hope, it's inventory: what's actually recoverable today, what's already lost, and refusing to confuse the two.

Aurelio StoneSeneca has the line for that inventory: "Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life." Cash it out and it means: stop scoring the whole game by the final position, score today's move. Did the household actually cut waste, did the vote get cast, did the loud opinion get voiced instead of just felt? That's the improved worst piece, played today. The overshoot doesn't get undone by dread — it gets chipped at by boring, repeated, unglamorous drills. Grief for the lost pawns is allowed. Just don't let it skip your move.

Ada BlackwoodThen let's close the notebook on this one properly. I keep a page titled "Beautiful Losses" — games I handed away brilliantly, studied harder than any win, because a loss you actually examine teaches more than a win you just enjoyed. Overshooting 1.5°C might be exactly that kind of game: not the clean victory we drew up on paper, but not a resignation either. You don't get to refuse the position you're in — only how carefully you play it from here. So play it like you mean to still be at the table when the endgame arrives. Make it a beautiful loss, if it must be one. Never a careless one.

Aurelio StoneMarcus again, the line I save for last: "You could leave life right now — let that determine what you do and say and think." Not morbid — clarifying. Play like this position is the only one you get, because it is. No sequel game, no do-over draw. So here's the whole show in one move: sort what's yours, drill it daily, grieve what's lost without skipping your turn. Overshoot isn't the end of the story — it's just the line where we stop admiring the board and start playing the pieces we've actually got.

That's a wrap on this riff. Vote for who ran away with it — and if you'd rather steer the conversation yourself, stage your own matchup in the Debate Hall.