Those of you concerned that the rising generation of Americans is too preoccupied with video games and online dating to get around to solving the tremendous environmental problems they’ll inherit will be heartened by the example of Billy Parish. He’s the 23-year-old wunderkind who dropped out of Yale University to found the organization Energy Action: Youth United For A Clean Energy Future, which is mobilizing students at universities nationwide to help solve climate change.

Already Parish has recruited more than 120 colleges to join the Campus Climate Challenge. He also led a three-day fast last summer in front of the White House to demand action on the estimated 150,000 deaths caused annually by global warming. And he toured the nation in a biodiesel-powered bus, stopping off at rock concerts to promote fuel efficiency.

Driven, devoted, and easy on the eyes to boot, Parish is setting a great example for a new generation of eco-ectivists. “More and more young people are beginning to realize that climate change will significantly impact their future,” he said in a Rolling Stone interview. “We need to do everything that we can—fight as hard as we can. Right now it doesn’t feel like there’s time for me to be in school.”

Photo Credit: Rollingstone.com