
Billy Parish
Renowned Social Entrepreneur & Youth Organizer
Billy Parish is an innovative youth organizer, social entrepreneur, and champion of the green economy. A co-founder of the Energy Action Coalition, Parish is also the co-author, along with Dev Aujla, of Making Good: Finding Meaning, Money, and Community in a Changing World, a book which shows others how to create a meaningful career.
Billy Parish is an innovative youth organizer, social entrepreneur, and champion of the green economy. In 2002, Parish dropped out of Yale University to co-found the Energy Action Coalition and helped to grow it into the world's largest youth advocacy organization working on the climate crisis.
Parish has helped launch dozens of youth, climate, and green-jobs related organizations and initiatives, including Green Owl Records, a green music label affiliated with Warner Music Group; ItsGettingHotInHere.org, the largest youth issues blog and second largest climate change blog in the world; The Navajo Green Economy Coalition, which passed groundbreaking green jobs legislation on the Navajo Nation; and the Clean Energy Corps, a proposal based on the Civilian Conservation Corps designed to create millions of new job opportunities in the U.S.
Parish serves on numerous non-profit and clean-tech boards including The Clinton Global Initiative, Motor Excellence, and the Alliance for Climate Protection.
Additionally, he was honoured as a 2005 Rolling Stone magazine "Climate Hero;" 2006 Mother Jones "Student Activist of the Year;" a Salon.com's 2007 "Sexiest Men Living;" and as an Utne Reader "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World."
In 2007, Parish was elected as a Fellow by Ashoka, the global association of the world's leading social entrepreneurs.
Parish is also the co-author of Making Good: Finding Meaning, Money, and Community in a Changing World. Making Good outlines how anyone can learn to create a meaningful career.
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3. The Future of the Environmental Movement
The climate crisis is unlike any issue the world has ever faced. The transition to a green economy will require a rapid and vast mobilization of resources from the public, private, and civic sectors, which will in turn require a set of strategies and a level of ambition that are still not widely discussed. Billy Parish summarizes the latest science, explores the political and movement landscape, and lays out the kinds of strategies that will lead to the emissions reductions our planet needs.
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2. Engaging and Inspiring Youth
Drawing on lessons from running the Energy Action Coalition, and statistics from relevant polling and market research on youth attitudes, Billy Parish explains what young people care about and how to get them involved in your organization.
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1. NEW: Making Good: Finding Meaning, Money, and Community in a Changing World
As a social entrepreneur, Billy Parish believes that today's generation can have both meaningful careers AND financial autonomy. Parish shares the wisdom outlined in his book (co-authored with Dev Ajula) Making Good: Finding Meaning, Money, and Community in a Changing World to show others how they can find and create jobs that support the environment and local communities.
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Working on a laptop and sleeping on couches from San Francisco to North Dakota, Parish has galvanized students across the country to take action on global warming...He quit school and became the coordinator of Energy Action, mobilizing more than a thousand student groups to lower climate-warming pollution...soft-spoken in a way that commands respect: He's sincere without sounding self-righteous.
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In 2002 Billy Parish became a media darling after dropping out of Yale and devoting himself to building a massive youth environmental movement. This was no whimsical ambition. Six years later, Parish is positioned to collate an even bigger awakening: a shift to green jobs.
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His unshakable idealism and optimism in the face of the biggest threat to the planet today gives even us complacent and cynical oldsters hope...By networking the youth movement for clean energy, Parish is not only helping make the YouTube generation's voice heard offline, he's speaking up for generations to come, who will suffer the worst impacts of rising sea levels and a warmer world.
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February 2012Making Good
As we emerge from the recession, a generation is searching for practical answers about how to succeed and make positive change in the world. With real-life success stories and practical advice and exercises, Making Good outlines how to find opportunities to effect change and make money. These opportunities are not just for entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies: Making Good shows step-by-step how any person can achieve financial autonomy, capitalize on global changes to infrastructure, and learn from everyday success stories, providing the skills and insights this generation needs to succeed and build careers and lives of consequence.
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