Articles by Billy Parish
Billy Parish is co-founder and coordinator of the Energy Action Coalition. Billy has taken four years off from Yale, where he was co-chair of the Yale Student Environmental Coalition and was majoring in Ethics, Politics & Economics. Billy was a 2004 Brower Youth Award Winner, 2005 Rolling Stone "Climate Hero," Mother Jones magazine's 2006 "Student Activist of the Year," and was recently named a fellow by Ashoka, the global association of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. A co-author of the report "New Energy for Campuses," a guide for colleges and universities on how to cost-effectively cut their greenhouse gas emissions, Billy works to train students and equip them with the tools they need to implement local climate solutions. A native of New York City, Billy now works out of the Washington D.C. office of the Energy Action Coalition.
All Articles
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From Washers to Wind: Obama in Iowa
Yesterday was the 39th anniversary of Earth Day, and to mark the occasion President Obama was in Newton, Iowa, to speak about clean energy. Newton is one of those towns where most of the residents are employed by one major employer, and until October 2007, that employer was Maytag. So when Whirlpool bought Maytag and […]
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Tribal leaders converge on Denver to protest Black Mesa project
It looks like another rushed “midnight regulation” from the Department of the Interior may be issued in favor of Peabody Coal, and the Navajo and Hopi people of Black Mesa are trying to stop it. A large delegation has traveled to Denver to meet with top officials in the Office of Surface Mining and hold […]
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A way for Congress to provide economic stimulus that is green and just
Forty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis, where he was assassinated, to help support the long struggle of the city's sanitation workers for decent jobs and dignity. He was also speaking out against the Vietnam War, organizing a Poor People's March on Washington, and crafting an Economic Bill of Rights, calling for massive government jobs programs to rebuild America's cities. In Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community, the last book he released before he was killed, he wrote:
There is a need for a radical restructuring of the architecture of American society ... For the evils of racism, poverty and militarism to die, a new set of values must be born. Our economy must become more person-centered than property-and profit-centered. Our government must depend more on its moral power than on its military power. Let us, therefore, not think of our movement as one that seeks to integrate the Negro into all the existing values of American society. Let us be those creative dissenters who call our beloved nation to a higher destiny.
Today, the struggles for economic and racial justice must merge with the struggle to stop global warming. Its worst effects will be visited on the poor, and the great economic opportunity a clean energy future offers should be shared fairly with them. Equal protection and equal opportunity was what King demanded in the 1960s. We should be demanding the same today.
