The effects of wealth disparity on climate change have been known for decades: the fact that wealthier people consume more and have a higher carbon footprint is common knowledge, but it’s difficult for the average citizen to understand the magnitude of this difference—and the consequences that low-income people and those in the Global South have to suffer for climate disasters they did not cause. These issues have grown in scope as wealth not only stratifies immensely but also does not circulate; wealthy people are not reinvesting into the economy in the manner that many of our social services presume them to be, both with spending itself and with taxpaying. As a result, the social safety nets designed to pull people out of poverty and provide welfare for those in need are incredibly underfunded, and more impoverished people without the means to relocate to safer areas bear the brunt of the impact of natural disasters caused or intensified by climate change, like floods and hurricanes.

Recently, a post from Kylie Jenner about her and Travis Scott’s private planes, and information from the Twitter account @CelebJets (which tracks the movement of celebrities’ private jets) brought the Kardashian family under fire for their immense carbon footprint when compared to the average person. Most celebrities use disproportionately more greenhouse gases than average due to the confluence of private transportation like planes and yachts, consumption habits, and multiple properties. Flying private is more than ten times more polluting than a commercial flight, and a report showed that Kim Kardashian’s recent 23-minute flight from San Diego to Camarillo—a drive that could have been completed in less than 3 hours with only a fraction of the climate impact—emitted more than 3 tons of carbon dioxide. The flights that celebrities take on private jets, many of them less than half an hour and some even closer to five minutes, wreak havoc on the atmosphere at a magnitude most people cannot even fathom.

The publication of a study by the analytical Yard Group showed that Taylor Swift is the greatest carbon dioxide polluter among a list of celebrities, amassing almost 23,000 minutes in the air since January this year and an estimated 8,293.54 tons of emissions, 1,184.8 times more than the average person. In an addendum, the group went further into the specific emissions of each type of jet the celebrity-owned, finding that ultimately, the greatest polluters were Taylor Swift (a more accurate estimate of 2,971.50 tons), Drake, and Floyd Mayweather—all of whom emitted more than 2000 tons with their private jets in only the first seven months of 2022. The plane emissions represent only part of the full picture, which includes where the food that celebrities eat is sourced from, the fabric they wear, how their products—if they own a business—are made, the properties they own, and much more.

The shift towards a focus on collective responsibility rather than individual one has been beneficial for the climate movement on an interpersonal scale; firstly, it blames the large corporations and enacts pressure on them to make changes instead of blaming individuals for making environmental decisions that have very little impact and are often unavoidable, especially for those without the financial means to shop or buy more eco-friendly options. However, it is not the same for celebrities. Those responsible for emitting as much carbon as a small country are in very different situations than people who drive gas cars. And the hypocrisy must be pointed out: many of the celebrities who emit the most carbon, like Taylor Swift, are active in the philanthropy sphere and vocal about social justice issues like climate change. The mindset of dodging individual blame for their own contributions to these problems, and their inabilities to see who it truly affects—communities in climate-vulnerable areas, particularly in the Global South and developing countries—stop them from understanding, or caring, that personal change is needed to truly advocate for said issues.

After the initial reaction online—prompted by Kylie Jenner’s post—the report from the Yard was released, and much of the outrage was redirected from Jenner to Taylor Swift; Internet users’ attitudes were largely driven by shock and anger. One Twitter user @BesDMarx tweeted that “[Taylor Swift] has emitted more [CO2] this year than an average US [A]merican does within 550 years and more than a person from [I]ndia in over 4,300 years.” While some Taylor Swift fans tried to defend her actions by pointing to her environmental work and activism, many people pointed out not just the scope of Taylor Swift’s emissions but the hypocrisy and logical disconnect between her music and lifestyle. Although much of her recent discography has centred around themes of nature—especially in the albums ‘folklore’ and ‘evermore’—her actions have not demonstrated appreciation for the same environment she is actively destroying with her private jet usage.

Taylor Swift’s spokesperson’s statement was also met with ridicule online. In the statement, Swift’s representative insisted that Taylor was not responsible for “most or all” of the trips taken by her private jet, as it was often loaned out to friends. While the veracity of this statement cannot be confirmed, the fact that celebrity private jets are used for flights as short as sixteen minutes (as per @CelebJets on Twitter) or less is a behavioural problem that so many of these celebrities engage in, and patterns of activity condoned by high-wealth societies. The fact that the Internet backlash generated so much publicity and outrage could, hopefully, result in profound alterations on the part of the worst polluters, but it requires concerted financial control and consequences for those that do not change their ways.

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Image credits: 

By NASA - NASA ECN-2478, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=931217

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