Billie Eilish explains her climate anxiety: 'It makes me want to barf all over the floor'
Billie Eilish is sharing a glimpse into her activism for the planet on the latest cover of Vogue, sharing the spotlight with fellow young activists and opening up about her own "climate anxiety."
For the publication's January cover story, the 21-year-old singer asked a group of young activists about managing their feelings when it comes to the reality of the state of the Earth. "It makes me want to barf all over the floor," Eilish said of her own emotions. "We all wish that we could just do it ourselves. I wish I could just make changes in my life and save the world alone."
While the Happier Than Ever singer has made some positive contributions to the environment through her own efforts to lessen her carbon footprint, she told Vogue that she's careful "not to be in people’s faces about it."
"People don’t respond well to that. It makes the causes that you believe in look bad, because you’re, like, annoying the shit out of everybody," Eilish said of being quieter about her strong feelings. "I don’t want to be parading around like, Look at me! I’m making a difference. I just want to be making the difference and shutting the f*** up about it."
Nevertheless, the long-time vegan has been using her platform to educate fans on climate change, and has even used opportunities like her 2022 world tour to partner with a nonprofit organization Reverb to make her tours "green" with interactive Eco-Villages.
"I’m still not shoving information down people’s throats,” she said. “I’m more like, I’m not going to tell you what to do. I’m just going to tell you why I do this … But you’re also a bad person if you don’t do it."
Even still, she's the first to admit that there's more she could be doing — or not doing, rather — to help save the planet.
"I shouldn’t be making any products. I shouldn’t be selling anything. It’s just more shit to go into the landfill one day. I know that," she said. "But no one’s going to stop wearing clothes. No one’s going to stop making stuff. So I just do it in the best way I possibly can."
She also acknowledges that to travel for tour "I have to take planes. I hate it," she said. But unlike a lot of other touring artists, she allegedly focuses on workarounds that don't involve private planes.
Much of the effort she makes is encouraged by her mother, Maggie Baird, who raised her daughter vegetarian before Eilish went vegan at the age of 12, and is credited for leading the charge to make her daughter's tour sustainable and even founding a nonprofit Support + Feed, which takes a plant-based approach to solving food insecurity. "My mom is the most determined and most passionate person. It’s thanks to her that I know anything," Eilish said.
As for how far Eilish would take her own work in the space, she wishes she could do it all.
"Grow my own food and live off the grid. Erase my carbon footprint," she said, before acknowledging her limits. "All that does is erase me. When really, if every single person just did half of what they should do, we could fix this."
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