Taylor Swift is the worst celebrity climate polluter of the year so far through her lavish use of private jets, new research reveals. The 32-year-old ‘Shake it Off’ singer has racked up 170 flights on her private jet in little more than six months and has already emitted 8,293.54 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere – More than 1,184 times the CO2 emissions of the average person in an entire year.
The findings are the result of research by data analysts Yard who took a deep dive into celebrity private jet data compiled on the aptly named ‘Celebrity Jets’ Twitter feed.
It was after Kylie Jenner whipped up an internet controversy over her use of a private jet for some particularly short flights that Yard decided to investigate further, and it turns out Jenner is by far the worst PJ offender for CO2 emissions.
On Yard’s scale, Jenner ranks in only 19th place, while Swift’s private jet was also found to have flown some pretty short flights. The quickest of which was a hop from Missouri to Nashville which took just 36 minutes. That flight has helped Swift rack up 22,923 minutes in the air so far this year.
“It’s easy to get lost in the dazzling lives of the rich and famous, but unfortunately, they’re a massive part of the CO2e problem we have with the aviation industry,” commented Yard’s digital sustainability director Chris Butterworth.
“Aviation is responsible for 2.4% of human-produced CO2e every year, and research shows a vast divide between the super-rich and the rest of us regarding flights, travel, and even general emissions,” Butterworth continued.
In second place was Floyd Mayweather who is taking on average 25 flights per month and has so far emitted 7,076.8 tonnes of CO2 from his private jet. The top three was rounded out by Jay-Z who has taken 136 flights on his private jet since January and has emitted 6,981.3 tonnes of CO2.
The entire Top Ten looks like this:
- Taylor Swift – 8,293.54 tonnes
- Floyd Mayweather – 7,076.8 tonnes
- Jay-Z – 6,981.3 tonnes
- A-Rod – 5,342.7 tonnes
- Blake Shelton – 4495 tonnes of CO2
- Steven Spielberg – 4,465 tonnes
- Kim Kardashian – 4268.5 tonnes
- Mark Wahlberg – 3772.85 tonnes
- Oprah Winfrey – 3,493.17 tonnes
- Travis Scott – 3033.3 tonnes
Researchers derived these figures by scraping data from the Celeb Jets Twitter account for all flights between January 1 and July 19. On average, the worst offending celebrities have emitted 3376.64 tonnes of CO2 from private jet use so far this year – in comparison, the average person emits just 7 tonnes of CO2 in an entire year.
