What's one private jet when you can fly two? Taylor Swift ramps up the old carbon footprint to new levels
Next time pop star Taylor Swift starts waxing all pious about saving the planet, maybe someone can ask her about those two private jets she traipses around on a plume of carbon compounds to get around the planet.
According to Gizmodo:
Flying from Tokyo, Japan back to the U.S. to get to the Super Bowl and watch her boyfriend Travis Kelce play was very important to pop superstar Taylor Swift—so important that she apparently had a second private jet on standby.
The existence of a second private jet for Swift, who was in Tokyo giving a series of concerts, was reported on Saturday by FlightRadar24, a global flight tracking service, and aptly named “Backup Quarterback” on its website. Jason Rabinowitz, co-host of FlightRadar24’s AvTalk podcast, added that private jet operator VistaJet had mechanics on standby at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport in case something went wrong.
So that second jet she had flying there wasn't to haul heavy music equipment or anything, it was just flying empty as a spare, in case something went wrong with the first jet.
The Independent notes that Business Insider reported that she got rid of the second one, but that seems to be contradicted by this report above.
Yet whether it was two or one, and the latest report says 'two,' it contrasts rather sharply with this kind of talk, such as she gave in 2020, described by a University of Pennsylvania website:
Taylor cares about climate disruption and the environment. In a 2020 interview, she said climate change was one of the “horrific situations that we find ourselves facing right now,” especially young people.
Horrific, she said.
No, really.
And it turns out she's the world's biggest celebrity carbon polluter, according to Penn:
In mid-2022, her private jet was named “biggest celebrity CO2e polluter this year so far.” Of the toxic contributors that the wealthy have access to, private jets are probably the worst. Taylor has two. A 2023 study found the wealthiest 1% of air travelers cause half of all aviation emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide. It is a staggering—“It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me”—stat.
The Associated Press says it's a lot of carbon compounds:
If Swift attends the Super Bowl, she will be traveling from Tokyo, where she is on tour. That will mean more than 19,400 miles (30,500 kilometers) by private jet in just under two weeks. Just how much carbon dioxide will that be?
While exact carbon emissions depend on many factors, such as flight paths and number of passengers, a rough estimate is possible, said Gregory Keoleian, co-director of the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan. Traveling 19,400 miles on a Dassault Falcon 900LX, one of Swift’s jets, could release more than 200,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, he said.
Sure, it's an important flight to her. But the odds of something going wrong on a reputable carrier, subject to inspections and employing top-flight personnel, are very, very, low. And according to the Penn report, she does this all the time. She even threatened to sue some kid who was tracking her private jets.
What isn't low is her carbon compound trail, even if she pays "indulgences" or offsets as they are known, to carbon compound companies, which the Penn site notes are nonsense anyway.
She flew, she spewed, and now the world has more of that carbon she's been warning us to cut back on. Maybe she can just zip it next time the environment comes up.
Image: Screen shot from Access Hollywood video, via YouTube