Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott have "his and hers" private jets - and they want everyone to know about it. Photo / Instagram/Kylie Jenner
OPINION:
How many paper straws have to dissolve in my drinks to make up for Kylie Jenner's 12-minute flights in her private jet?
The socialite made headlines recently when she woke up and decided to post a photo of herself and her partner Travis Scott with their private jets in the background.
"You wanna take mine or yours??" she asked in the caption.
Kylie, for the love of God, it's 2022. The world is literally on fire. How was posting this a good idea?
To the surprise of absolutely no one at all, Kylie and Travis whatshisface have been slammed as "climate criminals". Are they really, though? I don't know. Rich men are firing themselves off into space for "tourism" so the scale at which rich people are destroying the planet is becoming a bit hard for my tired brain to comprehend.
Kylie Jenner might not be a "climate criminal" but she is one of the public faces of an issue that goes well beyond her. More than the culprit, she is the symptom of a society where rich people constantly get away with not giving a toss about the world, while poor people cannot go a day without being made to feel guilty for not composting.
A Twitter account that tracks celebrity flights on their private jets found that Jenner's private jet made a 17-minute flight on July 12.
The same Twitter account also shows that Drake's private jet made an 18-minute flight recently, Mark Wahlberg's private jet went on a 23-minute flight, among other short trips, and Tom Cruise reportedly went on a 12-minute flight earlier this week in Ireland.
Taylor Swift, Floyd Mayweather and Jay-Z have recently been named in the top three of the "Celebs with the Worst Private Jet CO2 Emissions". Oprah makes the list too, as does Steven Spielberg and Blake Shelton.
According to digital marketing agency Yard, who compiled the list, the celebrities have emitted an average of 3256.36 tonnes of CO2 emissions in just their private jet usage this year so far. That number is about 465.2 times more than the average person's annual emissions.
It is entirely possible that these celebrities were not on a lot of these flights. As Drake tried to explain when faced with backlash over his own jet's short flights: "This is just them moving planes to whatever airport they are being stored at for anyone who was interested in the logistics … nobody takes that flight."
I'm not entirely sure how "nobody takes that flight" makes it better but that was Drake's reasoning so do with it what you will.
The practice of flying on private jets is widespread among celebrities (I'd go well beyond my entire word count for this column just trying to list all the ones who do it) but they're not even the only ones. There are a few very legitimate uses for private jets but that list does not include celebrity joy rides taken to avoid rubbing shoulders with the peasants flying commercial. That said, famous people are easy targets - meanwhile, many one-percenters we've never heard of keep getting away with doing the same, and worse, while we stay busy getting mad at reality TV stars.
Sure, celebrities who try to sound relatable but then take private jets to hop across town are annoying but getting angry at Kylie Jenner is not exactly a great climate change plan. Kylie Jenner takes her private jet on silly little flights because she lives in a society that allows her to do that and get away with it.
I don't need Kylie Jenner to wake up tomorrow and have some kind of epiphany about how she shouldn't be doing half the stuff she does. What we need is structural change, including stricter regulations around CO2 emissions. We need to live in a world where there are consequences for people who can do their bit and actively choose not to.
Whether the anger is misplaced or not, you cannot blame people for feeling a little disheartened when they try so hard to recycle, avoid plastic, buy organic, shop ethically, avoid single-use, save energy, avoid disposables, remember their reusable bags, buy in bulk, and compost, when others are so shameless about not giving a single damn.
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