The Milestone Is Not the Mercy

We should say plainly what Friday's fusion number is: a genuine achievement, better than 31 percent of the reconnected grid, won by people who deserve the applause they got. And we should say just as plainly what it is not. It is not a floor under the courtyards where the light still fails at the summer peak. A fraction of the grid is a measure of supply; it says nothing about who stands nearest the switch. This week a woman in the Concordat gallery held a card reading *SHARE OF WHAT?* — and the honest answer is that a share is not a promise. Twelve billion of us live under the same +2.8 degrees; roughly 112 million now live registered as migrants, past that mark and climbing through the hot months. The engineers have done their part. The distribution — the mercy — is a political choice we keep deferring. A ceiling raised over some heads is not a roof over all of them.