Why I launched a newsletter about climate change and engineering
Last month, I launched The Reengineer, a newsletter that I’m publishing every week.
In part, I was inspired the words of Margaret Atwood: “It’s not climate change — it’s everything change.” It increasingly looks like she was right.
During the past decade as a freelance journalist, I’ve noticed that my writing has ever more frequently focused on climate change and its myriad effects. Whether I’m writing about technology, engineering, energy, health, or wildlife — climate change looms large in all these stories.
The technologies and systems we all rely on are touched in some way by climate risk. My journalism has covered the threat facing roads built on permafrost, buildings endangered by increased lightning strikes, houses standing up to intensifying hurricanes, ships forced to reroute due to extreme weather, and the workers toiling in endless heatwaves who are now donning cooling vests just to make it through the day.
The Reengineer is about the shift to a more resilient and a more energy efficient future. I hope that it will appeal to anyone aiming to reduce their impact on the climate, and that the weekly editions will also be of use to those wondering how they will survive what climate change has to throw at us.
The challenges are massive. But they are also engrossing. We are tasked with reengineering civilisation itself, bit by bit. There is hope and courage to be found in the fact that this is possible.
That word, reengineering, comes from the business world. It might once have seemed a little dusty but today it feels powerful. Reengineering is what so many of us are 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.
