Lilli Petersen

After 11 years, my time at @HuffPost is coming to an end. Last week, I learned HuffPost would be ending its dedicated coverage of energy and climate change. This comes right after the world hit 1.5 degrees Celsius, the temperature average above pre-industrial norms that most nations on Earth wanted to keep warming from exceeding. In the United States, the country most responsible for the cumulative carbon added to the atmosphere, we are at the dawn of a massive upswing in electricity demand from data centers, air conditioning and electrification. The new Trump administration is set to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accords and embark on a radical new era of drilling, deregulation, and power plant construction. All of this requires diligent, balanced journalism. You can count on me to keep providing that. But it won’t be at HuffPost. Last Friday, I requested a buyout. Thanks to our union contract, I’m walking away with an enviable runaway by even the standards of some of my friends in professions with far better pay than journalism. When I arrived at HuffPost on March 3, 2014, I was a nervous 22-year-old, shaken by brutal experiences with past bosses and the misfortune of entering the job market at the tail end of the Great Recession. Within a year I was on staff, running the business vertical on my own on weekends, living in my first apartment in Brooklyn, and helping organize the union that ultimately delivered for me the security I’m benefiting from today. That would have been enough. But there was so much more to come. Chasing scoops, covering the first Trump administration and a world-historic pandemic, authoring features I never thought I had it in me to write, winning awards, going on international TV and radio, speaking on stages to audiences of hundreds, reporting from the Arctic, the Amazon, Asia, Europe and so much more. Over and over again, I would do that thing silly people sometimes do, trying to assess my career through the eyes of my teenage self. It felt awesome. I’m immensely grateful to my editors and colleagues at HuffPost for making all that possible. But, even before this latest upheaval, I was feeling restless. My wife is due with our daughter – our first child – in April, so I was content to stay put. Over the past six days, I’ve reflected a lot on how fortunate I feel to be pushed out of my comfort zone before the bleary-eyed early days of fatherhood rendered me that much more complacent. When HuffPost first announced the layoffs weeks ago, I was racked with anxiety. But as I started having conversations with editors all over the place, my confidence and optimism – not my usual mode of seeing the world – surged. There have been many moments I have been reminded of the concept in my faith of bitachon, or trust, in my higher power. That feels more real to me than it ever has. If you have followed my work here, then you know I’m not very good at sitting still for long. I have some exciting opportunities already lined up, including one starting Monday, and I’ll have more to say about that in the days and weeks to come. But I am open for business. If you want my byline or my expertise in energy and climate, now is the time to reach out and get on my schedule before one of my other suitors makes me an offer I can’t refuse. While I strongly disagree with the decision to deprioritize what I consider the most urgent story of this lifetime, HuffPost is filled with many talented reporters and editors, people I consider true friends who will remain there and continue to do excellent work. I will be reading them regularly, and encourage you to do the same. My final two stories, a two-part series that’s been in the works for months now, are due out this weekend. I’ll post an update on those once they publish. Stay tuned.