Remember when celebrities just did their little dance and sang their little song and didn’t endlessly lecture us about one “progressive” cause after another? Neither do I. For as long as I can remember, celebrities have yammered, finger-wagged and virtue-signalled about The Current Thing.
But it’s always — with very, very rare exceptions — about doing as they say, not as they do.
Case in point: “emissions”. Celebrities are Very Concerned about emissions. We Must Do Something to lower our “carbon footprints”.
By “we”, of course, they really mean “you”.
In July, marketing agency Yard released data it had collected from a flight tracking bot called Celeb Jets, which regularly posts to Twitter with detailed flight information from private planes.
This information was used to name celebrities who use their private jets a lot.
Like … a lot.
What’s the big deal, though? Surely you can’t expect celebrities to sully their shoulders by rubbing them with common people on commercial flights? Especially not when they’re on a mission to Save The Planet.
There was also controversy last year when a number of world leaders and delegates travelled to the COP26 climate summit in Scotland using private planes.
At the time, aviation analytics company Cirium told the BBC there were a total of 76 flights involving private jets, or VIP flights, arriving in and around Glasgow across a four-day period.
How bad are private jets, when it comes to emissions?
Really, really bad.
Yard’s digital sustainability director, Chris Butterworth, said private jet owners were “a massive part” of the aviation industry’s emissions issue.
“Aviation is responsible for 2.4 per cent of human-produced carbon every year, and research shows a vast divide between the super-rich and the rest of us regarding flights, travel, and even general emissions,” he said […]
Tim Ryley, Professor of Aviation at Griffith University, says while emissions vary depending on a plane’s size, efficiency and load, private jets generally produce significantly more emissions per passenger than commercial flights.
What’s more, most plane emissions occur during take-off and landing, which is an issue given that private jets are often used very frequently.
But celebrities are just the heavily-weighted heavy tip of the eco-crite iceberg.
Years ago, I knew a girl who was a vocal climate activist. She was also a dedicated “traveller”, taking at least one, up to four or more overseas holidays in a year. When I pointed out the discrepancy between her words and her actions, she got very angry. She wasn’t a hypocrite, she insisted: the travel was necessary for her to “grow as a person”.
Yeah, she’s a complete and utter hypocrite. And she’s not alone.
People who travel often, even on large commercial flights, can also rack up a large amount of emissions.
Studies have found that only a small percentage of people (usually in the single digits) emit more than half of global aviation emissions.
ABC Australia
Not a few of them will be the sort of “eco-conscious” bourgeoisie who tend to have an environmental footprint that dwarfs the rest of us.
Environmental identity will lead to some relatively low-impact (high-signaling) pro-environmental behaviors, but it rarely drives serious reductions in the biggest sources of lifestyle emissions. Environmental self-identification rises with income, but so do emissions.
Vox
Mostly because Tarquin and Titania McClimatewarrior, having diligently sorted their recyclables and bicycled to the Extinction Rebellion protest, decide that they’ve earned themselves little treats like a couple of overseas holidays every year, and 24/7 air-conditioning. The nosey-nannas and eco-greybeards don’t want to start feeling all smug, either.
In fact, eco-hypocrisy has got so blatant that now they’re busily penning op-eds, telling themselves that it’s OK to be an eco-crite.
These people are shameless.
