Hello, world! We’ve got a lot to do.

You know who put it best? Margaret Atwood. She said, “It’s not climate change – it’s everything change." And it looks like she was right. During the past decade or so as a freelance journalist, my writing has increasingly focused on climate change and its myriad effects. This has been true for stories ranging from technology to engineering, energy, health, and wildlife – climate change looms large everywhere.

Take the threat facing roads built on permafrost, the buildings endangered by increased lightning strikes, houses that are standing up to intensifying hurricanes, ships forced to reroute due to extreme weather, and the workers toiling in endless heatwaves now donning cooling vests just to make it through the day.

This newsletter is about the people and technologies promising to move us towards a more resilient and a more energy efficient future. What motivates people to get involved in this sort of thing? And how do so-called green technologies work?

To overcome climate change, we face many challenges. But they are engrossing ones. We are tasked with reengineering civilisation itself, bit by bit.

That word, “reengineering”, comes from the business world. But, expanded beyond that sphere, it is a powerful concept. Reengineering is what so many of us are already doing right now. We’re reengineering our homes, our infrastructure, our energy resources, and our expectations in response to climate change.

We are the first species in Earth’s 4.5 billion-year history that has not just recognised an existential threat – but also the fact that we might be able to do something about it.

So buckle up. Welcome to The Reengineer.

Who’s who

Founder & Editor

My name is Chris Baraniuk and, for better or worse, I write a lot. I’ve been publishing journalism online since I was 13 and I’m lucky enough to have made a career out of it. My stories have been published by the BBC, Wired, The Guardian, The BMJ, National Geographic, New Scientist, The Economist, and others. I love gardening, music and good food. My home is in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Sub-editor

Duncan Fyfe, writer and narrative designer, helps ensure I only publish high-quality copy on The Reengineer.

Editorial Adviser

Richard Fisher, journalist, author and lecturer is a fountain of knowledge and experience who has assisted The Reengineer from its very inception.

Statement on AI

Every article published on The Reengineer is put together by hand with zero input from generative AI tools. This will forever remain so. My articles contain original reporting, and almost always include comments from human sources with whom I have spoken directly. That’s what I do. This newsletter is not an excuse to churn out meandering analyses half written by a machine. It is a platform for real journalism about people, science and technology. Stories told by me to you.

If you would like to support me by becoming a paid subscriber, I would be extremely grateful. Should that not be an option for you, simply sharing my writing with your friends, colleagues or social media followers would go some way towards ensuring that human-authored journalism can still make an impact in this world.