iPhone app iPad app Android phone app Android tablet app

Billy Parish
GET UPDATES FROM Billy Parish
 
Billy Parish is Co-Founder and President of Mosaic, a solar investment platform, and Co-Author of Making Good: Finding Meaning, Money & Community in a Changing World. In 2002, he dropped out of Yale to found the Energy Action Coalition and grew it into the largest youth advocacy organization in the world working on the climate crisis. A serial social entrepreneur, Parish has helped launch dozens of clean energy, youth, and green jobs related companies and organizations and has been honored as a Rolling Stone magazine “Climate Hero,” an Utne Reader “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World” was elected as a Fellow by Ashoka, the global association of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. He lives in Oakland, CA, with his wife and two daughters.

Blog Entries by Billy Parish

The Days After the Storm

(2) Comments | Posted November 3, 2012 | 7:04 PM

By Daniel Rosen and Billy Parish, co-founders of Mosaic

First and foremost, our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and communities devastated by Hurricane Sandy. We've seen the impacts of climate change in other parts of the world, but with Hurricane Sandy, we saw for the...

Read Post

On the Longest Day of the Year, Celebrate Solar Power!

(12) Comments | Posted June 20, 2012 | 2:20 PM

For those of us in the northern hemisphere, today is the longest day of the year. Here in Oakland, California, we're soaking up almost 15 hours of sunlight. Globally, about 7600 exajoules of solar energy -- that is, about 15 times the amount of energy humanity will use this year...

Read Post

How to Find a Job, If You Are Young

(15) Comments | Posted February 27, 2012 | 4:07 PM

Both my parents were lawyers. When I was growing up, the only career advice they ever gave me was to be anything I wanted to be, except a lawyer. They were not entirely prepared for the career path I would follow.

At the end of 2002, mid-way through my junior...

Read Post

Community Solar Pioneers

(5) Comments | Posted September 30, 2010 | 9:15 PM

David Brosch had a problem many Americans can relate to. He wanted solar power, but wasn't able to put it on his house. His roof had the wrong orientation, a tree partially blocked the sun, and it was more than he could afford. Many of his neighbors were in the...

Read Post

The Other 95%: Foundations Can Do More With Less

(1) Comments | Posted August 5, 2010 | 1:27 PM

Foundations have been really good to both of us, so a recent report from the Foundation Center on trends in philanthropic giving caught our eye:

The recent economic crisis caused the nation's more than 75,000 grant making foundations to cut their 2009 giving by an estimated 8.4 percent -- by...
Read Post

The World Bank's Gaming Play

(1) Comments | Posted March 18, 2010 | 11:37 AM

A few weeks ago, The World Bank Institute launched a social network-based game called Evoke. It's a first for the Bank and an attempt to reach a generation of mobile-enabled young people in developing countries with lessons in collaboration, sustainability, creativity, local insight and entrepreneurship. In...

Read Post

Training Ourselves for Our Future

(0) Comments | Posted March 2, 2010 | 5:23 PM

"It took me like ten years to graduate. I was working on my consulting business at the same time, and University only began to prepare me after I got all this work experience," Munira Ravji, the founder of a socially conscious event-planning company called Bene-Fete, told us. Like...

Read Post

The Key to Sustainability: 'Garment with Internal Bra'

(1) Comments | Posted January 29, 2010 | 11:25 AM

Arnold Goldman is a legend in the solar industry. Born in Israel, he came to the U.S. in the late seventies without any money or patents. He was an entrepreneur and spent days reading Department of Energy reports that listed all of the technology the government had invested in, developed...

Read Post

State of the Union and Green Entrepreneurship

(3) Comments | Posted January 28, 2010 | 12:31 PM

While mainstream environmental groups cheered the President's State of the Union, many climate activists and bloggers are pissed -- the speech included no specifics about what he wants in a climate bill, and the laundry list of "clean energy jobs" had nuclear, oil, coal and biofuels, but strangely didn't mention...

Read Post

Financing a Real Deal in Copenhagen

(8) Comments | Posted December 15, 2009 | 10:50 AM

At the international climate talks going on right now in Copenhagen, Denmark, we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to launch a major assault on global warming. Besides deciding emission targets and the legal structure of an agreement, commitments for long-term financing for developing countries to help green their...

Read Post

Accept it in Oslo, Earn it in Copenhagen

(0) Comments | Posted December 10, 2009 | 1:17 PM

Today is "Young and Future Generations Day" here at the International Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen, and I'm here with my wife Wahleah and our two-year-old daughter Tohaana. Along with thousands of other young people, we're doing everything in our power to convince world leaders to commit to a fair, ambitious,...

Read Post

Why We Fight

(1) Comments | Posted December 3, 2009 | 8:16 AM

We fight, even against insurmountable odds, because sometimes we win.

As I get ready to head to Copenhagen this Saturday for the international climate negotiations, I'm thrilled to see the success of The Leadership Campaign and their efforts to have Massachusetts use 100% clean electricity by 2020.

On Monday,...

Read Post

Young, Green, and Out of Work

(2) Comments | Posted October 5, 2009 | 6:45 PM

Last week, the Labor Department reported that youth unemployment stands at 18.2%, nearly twice the national average of 9.8%. The percentage of young people without a job is a staggering 53.4 percent, the highest figure since World War II. Looking deeper, the statistics for youth of color are terrible...

Read Post

A Big Breakthrough on Green Jobs

(0) Comments | Posted September 14, 2009 | 6:32 PM

The New York State Senate and Assembly, too often a model of corruption and dysfunctionality, rose above petty politics last week to pass forward-thinking legislation on climate and energy, setting a precedent for bipartisanship and a sensible cap and trade system. The State Senate passed the groundbreaking Green Job/Green...

Read Post

A New Number for a New Era: From 9/11 to 350

(0) Comments | Posted September 11, 2009 | 2:17 AM

Eight years ago today, two planes flew into the World Trade Center, another crashed into the Pentagon, and a fourth landed in a field in Pennsylvania. The raw power of that day came to be symbolized by a date composed of two numbers. Two numbers that evoked the shock of...

Read Post

Seven Ways to Fight Dirty (Energy)

(9) Comments | Posted August 3, 2009 | 12:08 PM

In case you missed it, dirty energy is back to dirty tricks. This time with the help of DC lobbyists, Bonner & Associates, who forged letters to Congressman Tom Perriello of Virgina's 5th District. The letters, written on "official" letterhead from the local NAACP chapter and a Hispanic group,...

Read Post

Can A Number Save the World?

(39) Comments | Posted June 21, 2009 | 1:50 PM

It can if that number is 350. That's the safe upper limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: 350 parts per million (ppm). It's also the rallying cry of a creative campaign to raise awareness of the climate crisis and build grassroots support for the 2009 Climate Conference in Copenhagen....

Read Post

Green Sector Creates 50% of New Jobs!

(16) Comments | Posted June 1, 2009 | 12:35 PM

...in Ireland.

This is great news for the people of Ireland. But we need to create those jobs in the US too. In Ireland, a country of four million, 10,000 "green" jobs were created in the last three months in organic farming, energy efficient construction, electric cars, and...

Read Post

You Can't Build a New Foundation with Dirty Energy

(1) Comments | Posted May 19, 2009 | 11:59 AM

Building a new foundation requires a lot of heavy machinery. Bulldozers to clear the land, extractors to dig the foundation, concrete-mixers to pour the cement, and trucks to haul the raw materials. So perhaps it's appropriate that Jim Owens, the CEO of Caterpillar will be at the White...

Read Post

Rethinking the Rules of Engagement

(20) Comments | Posted May 14, 2009 | 3:44 PM

In last week's New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a fascinating article, "How David Beats Goliath: When Underdogs Break The Rules." In his patented style Gladwell weaves together story after story of underdogs who defied convention to defeat much stronger opponents. From the Biblical story of David defeating Goliath, to...

Read Post