Since people keep speculating about TLP closing and our motives, here is how it went down:

In TLP’s first year as a formal organization, I was given an ultimatum by a donor not to write about climate policy and politics anymore, and not to publish anyone else on the subject as well, b/c they didn’t like our criticisms of Democratic orthodoxy and strategic failures on the issue. I refused the ultimatum and we continued to publish what we thought was correct analytically and politically. We lost future funding and consequently had to stop the growth of the organization and instead focus on keeping the plane from crashing by stretching a year’s worth of funding into three years. We put out a ton of good work over that time but it was unsustainable so we closed up shop.

No one owes us anything and the fate of TLP is on us. We had a good run and feel lucky to have been able to publish our work for 5+ years. But that’s the context.

(Interestingly, a different climate donor tried to get one of our earliest colleagues fired from his job at the think tank where we all worked when TLP was just a part-time venture. Our boss at the time fortunately rejected the effort. But lesson learned — stay far away from “climate” donors.)