FEATURE:
Our Futures
IN THIS PHOTO: Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish’s Climate Activism, and An Opportunity for Artists to Address a Major Concern
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SOMEONE who has always…
IN THIS PHOTO: Sir David Attenborough/PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Board
been concerned about environmental impact and making changes to the way she tours, Billie Eilish is deeply concerned about climate change and raising awareness. Obviously, this is not an isolated thing. She has been fighting climate change on tour for a while now, and other artists are raising concerns and amending the way they tour. Whether this is traveling less or using greener options, few have any excuses anymore. I guess, if you need to tour and get your music out there, it can be hard to reduce your carbon emissions or be more environmentally aware in an impactful way. I think that voicing concerns and discussing this through interviews and music is important. This takes me to something I want to address in the next part of this feature. First, Billie Eilish was featured in Vogue recently. She discussed subjects including a new relationship and self-acceptance. The main theme of the interview was climate activism – and how Eilish, along with eight young activists, talked about climate, community and hope in 2023:
“The first single from Eilish’s genre-defying second album, Happier Than Ever, “My Future” is about self-love but lends itself to broader interpretation—I’m in love with my future / can’t wait to meet her, goes the chorus. When we sit down, Eilish has just finished pre-recording a performance of the track with her older brother, Finneas O’Connell, for the Earthshot Prize telecast the following week—an environmental honor, conceived by Prince William and Sir David Attenborough, given annually to five innovators who are working to “repair and regenerate our planet.”
The song’s dual meaning also describes where Eilish finds herself this November afternoon, a month before her 21st birthday. Case in point: The relationship Eilish wants to discuss isn’t the one with Jesse Rutherford—the frontman of indie-pop outfit the Neighbourhood whom she introduced as her boyfriend last October—but with herself. Specifically, her new connection to her body. “Going through my teenage years of hating myself and all that stupid shit,” the native Angeleno says, “a lot of it came from my anger toward my body, and how mad I was at how much pain it’s caused me, and how much I’ve lost because of things that happened to it.” The most significant loss resulted from a growth plate injury in her hip, dashing her dance ambitions at age 13.
“I got injured right after we made ‘Ocean Eyes’”—the song Eilish uploaded to SoundCloud in 2015 that, as anyone who’s vaguely followed her career knows, started it all—“so, music kind of replaced dancing,” she says. Years of subsequent lower body injuries, and just as many misdiagnoses, increased the alienation Eilish felt in her own skin before she discovered, through her movement coach, Kristina Cañizares, that she has a condition called hypermobility.
“Stuff that you and I could do that would help us,” Baird explains, bundled in a black parka in this tiny, cold room lined with guitars and speakers, “like, certain kinds of massage or chiropractors, could actually hurt her.”
“I felt like my body was gaslighting me for years,” Eilish says. “I had to go through a process of being like, My body is actually me. And it’s not out to get me.”
Billie wears this newfound self-acceptance lightly, projecting not so much the emo angst of her early career as a kind of childlike joy. “I love you!” she tells 17,000 screaming fans over and over—many of them young women who see themselves in Eilish—at the first of her sold-out end-of-year performances in Los Angeles. It so happens that this mood shift comes as the seven-time Grammy winner has set her sights forward—on the greater goal of saving the planet.
“I’ve spent all of my effort trying not to be in people’s faces about it,” she says, her speaking voice assertive and unwavering. “Because 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.” But she has tried to educate people. During 2022’s Happier Than Ever world tour, Eilish set up Eco-Villages at her concert venues in partnership with Reverb, a nonprofit that has “greened” the tours of other acts and artists like Maroon 5 and Harry Styles. Inside those spaces, fans could fill their water bottles for free, register to vote, and learn about environmental nonprofits, with an emphasis on BIPOC- and women-led organizations. “I’m still not shoving information down people’s throats,” she says. “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.” She pauses, then offers a staccato laugh. “But you’re also a bad person if you don’t do it.”
“I’ve spent all of my effort trying not to be in people’s faces about it,” Eilish says, her speaking voice assertive and unwavering. “Because people don’t respond well to that”
Eilish hasn’t limited her commitment to the environment to her live shows. She famously secured a guarantee from Oscar de la Renta’s creative directors, Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim, to stop selling fur when she wore their design, a voluminous tulle Old Hollywood gown with a 15-foot train, to her first Met Gala in 2021, which she co-chaired with fellow Gen Z stars Timothée Chalamet, Naomi Osaka, and Amanda Gorman. “What was most inspiring to me from the creative side was to see this 19-year-old powerhouse look us in the eye and say, ‘I want to do something that scares me,’” Garcia recalls, referring to Eilish’s decision to wear a dress with pronounced corseting. “She inspired me to think outside the box and do things that scare me, too, because it usually means we’ll grow from it.” To last year’s Met Gala, Eilish wore upcycled Gucci, with whom she collaborated to make a limited edition of Happier Than Ever out of vinyl scraps from the original pressing, packaged in a box designed by former creative director Alessandro Michele.
“I don’t want to be parading around like, Look at me! I’m making a difference,” she says, sipping from a reusable blue water bottle. “I just want to be making the difference and shutting the fuck up about it.” Despite her good works, Eilish will be the first to tell you how unimpressed she is with herself. “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 shakes her head. “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.”
True to her word, Eilish used a series of concert dates last year at London’s O2 arena to stage a simultaneous six-day climate-awareness event called Overheated, named after another song from her last album. (A track that’s also about one thing—body-shaming—but can signify so many others.) Although Eilish and Finneas hosted the conference, which included a Youth Activist Zone and screenings of an Overheated documentary, the brother-and-sister team let other musicians, sustainable fashion designers, and activists take center stage. Hong Kong native and Overheated speaker Tori Tsui, 29, likens what Eilish did in London to a Trojan horse. “I’m sure the majority would rather have seen Billie speak,” says Tsui, who has been featured in a Stella McCartney campaign and whose book on the climate crisis and mental health, It’s Not Just You, will be published later this year by Simon & Schuster. “But can you imagine how powerful it is to use your platform to draw an audience who knows about the climate crisis but isn’t yet fully engaged? And then use that to shed light on some of the issues that don’t get as much attention?”
Eilish was eager to organize an event like Overheated for Vogue’s January cover, inviting Tsui and a group of young activists and organizers to join her in conversation about the climate, filmed by Academy Award–nominated writer-director Mike Mills (20th Century Women, C’mon C’mon). This mini climate summit takes place a few days before our interview, inside a soundstage in another industrial Eastside pocket of the city, where the Los Angeles River, the 5 freeway, and the Amtrak-Metrolink train tracks almost converge. It’s worth mentioning that the 51-mile-long LA River was covered over with concrete after a disastrous 1938 flood and has come to symbolize the myriad and interconnected consequences of climate change: flood risk, community displacement, social inequity, extinguished ecosystems, pollution, and drought—essentially the same issues Eilish’s assembled group has sought to remediate”.
I have seen some scepticism online regarding Eilish’s interview and passion. Some say it is a popular artist chiming in and not really committed. It is inspiring that Eilish is addressing climate change and is active in helping raise an important issue that affects everyone on Earth. I know that many artists are making changes to help do their part, but how often is it addressed more widely? Artists do use their platform to tackle and highlight important issues and subjects, but I do not often read or hear climate change brought up. There is the odd song here and there but, at a time when we are seeing extreme weather and climate emergency, I do wonder whether this year is one where there is greater exposure and conversation. It is not cynical for Eilish to engage in the debate. She has been fighting for years and making sure she sets an example! By engaging with climate activists and young voices, I hope that it gives inspiration to others. On hugely important and influential sites like TikTok and Instagram, how often do you see anything like climate change mentioned?! Huge subjects such as sexism, abuse within the industry and discrimination are vital topics that need to be addressed, but is climate change ranked as important? It is clear things are desperate when it comes to climate change, and I wonder if there is a channel or series where important figures discuss the environment. I thought a long time about a YouTube series or channel where big issues are discussed. Artists getting together with experts in the field to bring these to light. I admire Eilish hugely and think that she is using her voice and opportunities to focus not on something shallow or commercial – like so many artists would -, but to actually talk about something that is devastating.
IN THIS PHOTO: Greta Thunberg/PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Campanella/The Guardian
I think social media is still not be utilised to engage fans and followers in terms of deeper issues. It is important artists promote their music and do not make things too heavy, but there is this huge opportunity to engage with a young audience about something that is threatening the planet. As I say, maybe a weekly interview series or channel where this could be explored more widely? Incredible activists like Greta Thunberg are standing alongside Sir David Attenborough and others in keeping the message at the forefront. Eilish has discussed climate change for years now, and I do hope that the recent Vogue interview and video of her sitting with other young climate activists provokes wider action and debate. I also hope that other artists and figures in music not only do similarly and engage in the debate through interviews and on social media, but also think about making changes this year. Whether that is trying to use fewer aeroplanes or making sure they have a greener and less environmentally damaging set, everyone can do their part. We have come to the point in history where we are almost beyond salvation or any sort of preservation. It makes it even more pressing that everyone in the industry does their part. It is not just Billie Eilish fighting and talking - but she is among a handful of artists activating and engaging others on the issue of climate change. This is not something that only impacts the few. Climate change is something that will shape and affect…
ALL of our futures.