[imagesource: Instagram / @KylieSkin]
Climate change is not helped by the lavish lifestyles of the rich and famous.
The world’s billionaires cause way more carbon emissions – through their companies or in their private capacity – than the billion poorest people combined.
Not that they have to care too much because when things get bad, they can just hop on their luxury yacht or private jet and leave those worries behind.
It feels a bit useless for us folks on the ground, using non-plastic straws and trying not to buy meat or fast-fashion items, when celebs like Kylie Jenner are going on quick private jet jaunts that spew a ludicrous amount of carbon emissions into the air.
Solving the climate crisis should be up to every single human on this planet, and that should by no means exclude big-ass celebs (pun intended).
Celebrity Jets, a Twitter account that tracks the ridiculously short journeys of the rich and famous, has called out the likes of Jenner for contributing to the climate crisis in this way:
Kylie Jenner’s Jet Took off from Camarillo, California, US. Going to Van Nuys, California, US (VNY, Van Nuys Airport) arriving in ~3m. pic.twitter.com/Jo0ZAfaJ69
— Celebrity Jets (@CelebJets) July 13, 2022
Celebrity Jets also tracked Floyd Mayweather’s private jet journey on July 17, lasting approximately four minutes and seemingly going from one side of Las Vegas to the other, as well as a 25-minute voyage taken by Steven Spielberg’s plane.
Most recently, Oprah Winfrey was in the crosshairs:
Oprah Winfrey’s Jet Landed in Honolulu, Hawaii, US. Apx. flt. time 22 Mins. pic.twitter.com/lHbAipJ2oM
— Celebrity Jets (@CelebJets) July 20, 2022
Big Issue found a study that revealed how just 1% of the world’s population is responsible for half of the global carbon emissions from aviation in 2018:
So-called frequent-flying “super emitters” who flew an average of 35,000 miles a year stood in contrast to the 89 per cent of the global population who did not take a flight.
The study estimated the value of the damage caused by aviation emissions to be $100bn.
Hit it where it hurts, Kylie:
Edit that to “Whose plane should we use to pollute the earth today?”
Page Six reported on the backlash that Jenner got after boasting about her high-flying lifestyle.
Although @CelebJets later amended Jenner’s three-minute trip to a total flight time of 17 minutes, she has still been dubbed a full-time “climate criminal” on social media:
Can’t wait to see Kylie Jenner post environmental awareness pics on her stories as if she isn’t single-handedly doing more damage to the environment than most of us with her 3 min flights
— kaiya
(@ffsitskaiya) July 17, 2022
every time a paper straw begins to dissolve into my drink, I think about how Kylie Jenner uses a private jet for 3 min flights and I get mind numbingly angry
— maddie (@maddiemevans) July 18, 2022
I mean, this is the same girl who made a trip to the grocery store and car wash (in an episode of The Kardashians) seem like something fit for a theme park dedicated to people too rich to experience average things on a daily basis.
You have to expect that her level of awareness of the real issues on the ground is all but zero.
It is not an excuse, though.
