In the face of the climate emergency and energy-saving challenges that lie ahead, the excesses and whims of celebrities and famous people on their travels seem misplaced. Neither their luxurious life traveling the world on a private jet nor those amazing sea-going yachts that we see on these summer days benefit the planet.
A few days ago, Kim Kardashian’s sister, Kylie Jenner, lit the torch with another example of her attitude. The young Californian model and businesswoman received a barrage of criticism after she posted a video on her Instagram bragging about a 17-minute flight in her private jet simply because she felt like grabbing some snacks from a grocery store.
Some of her followers, outraged, called her a “climate criminal” because she went beyond the three limits of environmental protection principles – environmental minimization, reuse and recycling – but minimal common sense. By his stance, he showed no concern about the emission of polluting gases from his private plane into the atmosphere without action.
‘climate criminals’
Of course, he’s not the first and he won’t be the last celebrity to roar. Yard, a UK-based sustainable marketing company, has created a rating of the world’s biggest celebrity “climate criminals”. And according to the Yard List, the celebrity that has caused the most emissions from its private flights this year is Taylor Swift.
The singer-songwriter tops the list with total emissions of 8,293 tons of CO2, which could have been produced by more than 170 flights (it was in the air for about 16 days). Of those flights, some are shorter than 36 minutes to fly from Missouri to Nashville. After the news broke, Swift’s rep approached Rolling Stone magazine, where she explained, “Taylor’s plane is regularly loaned to other people. Attributing most or all of these flights to her is a glaring error.”
Songwriters such as “Don’t Blame Me” and “Cruel Summer and Blank Space” top the list with Floyd Mayweather Jr., former professional boxer and rapper Jay-Z, while Alex Rodriguez, a baseball team player and former friend of JLo, is a country music superstar. American Blake Shelton, film director Steven Spielberg, Kim Kardashian, actor Mark Wahlberg and presenter Oprah Winfrey are the rest of the biggest polluters. Ironically, Kylie Jenner doesn’t appear on the most polluted list, but the father of her children, Travis Scott, tenth.
But where do these accounts come from? Well, it’s run by Jack Sweeney, the 19-year-old programming student who Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, offered him $5,000 if he stopped tweeting about the carbon footprint of his famous private flights. Not only has he declined, but his automated profile on Celebrity Jets has thousands of followers. Publish the take-off and landing location, aircraft model, time, amount of carbon dioxide emitted, and aircraft owner. Of course, this does not mean that these are always present inside.
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