The world is slowly dying around us, thanks to generations of abuse.
An onslaught of ceaseless news reports plead with the general public to do their part to reduce our planet’s carbon output. Minor solutions like eating less meat, relying on public transportation, and ditching plastics and waste for reusable products have all seen an uptick in recent years, as average people do their part to ease our planet’s suffering. Meanwhile, as everyday humans adjust their habits to better serve the environment, utterly destructive celebrities are ruining every minor adjustment we make. Taking a bus to the farmers’ market means a lot, on a small scale, but this effort is wasted in a world filled with selfish celebs and their private transportations. Your Mitsubishi isn’t pumping out nearly the same level of emissions as Jay-Z’s jet.
In recent months, the spotlight has shifted from the small, measured changes we can make in our everyday lives to the reckless celebrities who effortlessly curb-stomp our efforts. Months worth of public transportation, reusable bags, and vegetarian lifestyle is negated with each trip Kim Kardashian takes on her private jet, and people are starting to take notice. We’re just starting to take aim at these negligent stars, and in doing so we’ve discovered a massive and insidious problem. The typical celebrity generates an utterly colossal amount of emissions on a monthly basis, butchering the small attempts made by the rest of the population. Some celebrities are far more conscientious than others, of course, with some of the worst offenders putting their fellow stars to shame.
The worst celebrity carbon offenders
A number of celebrities have become targets of criticism in recent months, as their lackadaisical trips from one corner of California to the next pump toxic emissions into the Earth’s atmosphere. The greatest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, are transportation and electricity production. Our roadtrips and cross-country flights certainly lend to this, but nowhere near the levels of your average celebrity. The average person produces just over eight tonnes of CO2 per year, while a single hour-long flight in a private jet can produce up to two tonnes, according to data analyzed by Transport & Environment. Within a month, the majority of jet-owning celebrities vastly outpace the majority of average households in their CO2 emissions — often for the year.
It’s a huge problem, and we’re shining a spotlight on the worst offenders.
10. Travis Scott
Several weeks back, the conversation about private jets and their impact on the environment was largely spurred by an image from Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott, which Jenner shared to Instagram back in early July. The image showed the couple standing between their separate private jets, with a caption wondering if they should “take mine or yours.”
The image didn’t have the intended effect, instead sparking immediate backlash among a number of Jenner’s fans. The image soon became the go-to example of the carbon discussion, as people examined their own efforts to reduce emissions alongside Jenner and Scott’s blatant disregard. Of all the celebrities on this list, however, Scott largely takes the shortest flights. This isn’t necessarily a good thing — the man’s flights in 2022 average less than eight minutes apiece, for god’s sake — but it does reduce his impact somewhat.
9. Oprah Winfrey
The Queen of Media is also, unfortunately, one of the biggest celebrity contributors to carbon emissions. She’s not guilty of the criminally short flights Travis Scott seems so fond of, with typical flights on her jet averaging around 80 minutes, but she’s certainly willing to pump some toxins into the atmosphere. She usually travels around 100 miles, but the celebrated talk show host isn’t always so careful. One of the shortest trips she’s taken on her $75 million jet came in at around 15 minutes, and still managed to produce a whopping half tonne of CO2. In a single trip.
8. Mark Wahlberg
Marky Mark has been seemingly everywhere the last few decades, and it seems he got there on his private jet. Among his peers in the acting community, Wahlberg is the biggest offender when it comes to emissions, and it’s entirely due to his reliance on his private form of transportation. Thus far in 2022, Wahlberg has already made more than 100 trips in his jet, and this article certainly isn’t enough to disuade him from doubling that number by year’s end. His flights fall between Scott’s and Winfrey’s in typical length, with the shortest coming in at right around 30 minutes, according to data from Transport & Environment.
7. Kim Kardashian
We all knew a Kardashian would crop up somewhere on this list, but many readers may have expected Kylie, rather than Kim, to come in as the biggest offender. The middle Kardashian remains the worst of the bunch when it comes to emissions, however, thanks in huge part to her entirely careless use of her private jet. This year alone, Kardashian beats out the average person’s expected emissions by a few thousand, with flights on her jet producing an estimated 4,268.5 tonnes of CO2 between January and July 2022 alone.
6. Steven Spielberg
One of America’s most celebrated directors is also one of our worst carbon offenders. His jetsetting ways allow Spielberg to bring the masses a dizzying array of entertainment, often filmed on-location, but many of those locations will disappear in the coming decades if we don’t start treating the planet with more respect. Spielberg’s many trips for filming and location scouting have done a number on the environment, with more than 60 flights already logged this year. Most of them are at least rather lengthy, with the shortest flight so far in 2022 coming in at around 48 miles.
5. Blake Shelton
He’s not among music’s current darlings, but Blake Shelton is staying just busy enough to maintain a position as one of the worst carbon offenders out there. Shelton doesn’t really have the excuse that some of this list’s members have, with no thriving, bustling career to demand his presence in multiple states within days of each other. Despite this fact, the The Voice judge has reportedly spent more than eight full days in the air, between a number of cross-country flights.
4. Alex Rodriguez
Travel is very much a luxury of the wealthy. Between January and July of 2022, former baseball legend A-Rod took more than 100 flights in his own private jet, and probably sliced a few years off the earth’s lifespan in the process. He doesn’t lean on the mega-short stints that Scott is so fond of, instead averaging trips of around 80 minutes, but he has, according to KTLA, produced around 700 times the levels of CO2 most people will produce in all of 2022. Maybe he could use to cut down on the number of trips he has planned for 2023.
3. Jay-Z
Musical superstar and husband to the singular Beyoncé, Jay-Z is one of the absolute worst culprits of excessive jet usage. The 52-year-old is worth a staggering amount of money, which is perhaps why he is willing to waste so very many of our planet’s resources for his jet-setting lifestyle. So far in 2022, Jay-Z’s jet has embarked on more than 135 flights, totalling more than 6,981 tonnes of CO2 emissions in less than eight months.
Unlike many of the offenders on this list, however, Jay-Z’s numbers come with a small caveat. His jet is part of one of the companies he co-owns, Puma, and is often treated as a perk for athletes that sign onto the Puma brand. This doesn’t really make up for the damage done, however.
2. Floyd Mayweather
Most people are unlikely to reach the levels of emission Floyd Mayweather produces in a year over the course of their entire lives. The boxer-turned-entrepreneur relies heavily on his private jet for his day-to-day travel needs, and in 2022 alone has produced 7,076.8 tonnes of CO2. This totals out to a truly upsetting 1,011 times more than any average human’s annual carbon footprint.
This is due in large part to Mayweather’s unceasing travel. While its true that not all flights on his jet are taken by Mayweather himself, his jet has still set off on more than 175 flights so far this year, with an average that means the jet is in the air almost every single day.
1. Taylor Swift
As one of the biggest stars in the world, it’s not overly surprising that T-Swizzle is the worst offender on this list, but it is disappointing. Swift’s private jet usage puts some of the other celebs on this list to shame, with a full 15.9 days in the air so far this year. That’s a whopping 22,923 minutes of flight time overall, and amounts to 8,293.54 tonnes of emissions. Just this year. It’s also notable, as pointed out by Yard, that Swift is not currently touring, which makes these numbers all the more offensive.
While there’s little excuse for this level of environmental abuse, many of the flights taken on Swift’s jet did not include Tay-Tay herself. Her representatives quickly clapped back on accusations of carbon bombing with claims that Swift often rents out her jet, noting that “Taylor’s jet is loaned out regularly to other individuals,” and thus “to attribute most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect.” Still, maybe Tay-Tay can simply avoid use of her jet, by anyone, in the future.
We’ve only got one planet, after all, and if we’re biking to work and relying on paper straws, Swift’s jet can stay on the tarmac for awhile.
