The cost of luxury

By Rodrigo Verney, September 26 2022—

There are many allures to the celebrity lifestyle, may that be the fancy cars or the mountains of fans surrounding you wherever you go. However, with everything that appears great, the lavish life is full of problematic undertones. In a culture that glorifies and idealizes people for some pretty questionable attitudes, the power that they hold goes unchecked. As a result of that, we tend to uncover some actions that are actually damaging the environment and the people around them. 

So was the case with Kylie Jenner, who came under fire after the Twitter account @CelebJets, which keeps a tab on celebrity flights posted her little “beat traffic” jet flight to arrive from Camarillo, California to Van Nuys, California in 15 minutes instead of the 45-minute car ride. This news became viral after a huge backlash discovered the number of toxic gases that were released into the atmosphere in this less than an hour of flight. Of course, the question of whether that has been going on for far longer than we would hope lingers on.

To draw attention to more reckless behaviour, here is a list of other celebrities that abuse their luck and ride the waves of the good life without paying much attention to the harm they are inadvertently causing.  

5. Travis Scott

One of the most controversial artists in the modern era of rappers. Travis hasn’t been the best role model for his audience. Even though his audience has been pretty tolerant of his past misogynistic behaviour, the line has been drawn on his countless reckless attempts to rally up more fans than the show organizers could handle, which led to the devastating consequences of his infamous incident. Hence, he has been involved with so many other controversies that are far worse that his CO2 emissions might not be on anybody’s mind right now.

4. Kim Kardashian

Who is surprised that the biggest name of the lavish, carefree life made it to this list? The queen of social media can’t be punished for her misuse of jet planes given her immense cult following that isn’t that interested in how much pollution she is letting out on the atmosphere. Most likely the behavior will go unpunished and unchecked until something bigger comes to light. Like every other time…

3. Jay-Z

One of the greatest rappers alive has one of the greatest carbon emissions of the last decade. Jay-Z has been responsible for a lot of the private jet emissions we saw in the last year. The biggest problem is the number of domestic travels that could have easily been made using other methods of transportation. In a single flight from Atlanta to New Jersey, the Puma Jet emitted eight tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. Given the people to emissions ratio, this is stupidly inefficient. Which put Jay-Z among the top three worst offenders.

2. Floyd Mayweather 

For the man with an undefeated record, he has been racking up quite a bit of losses outside of the ring. The boxing legend might be more controversial than it may look at first. His controversial relationship with sexism makes it harder to criticize his private jet’s pollution since the backlash from the media, in general, doesn’t get picked up by the people that support him. So he has no real incentive to reduce or even slow down his carbon emissions. He emitted more than 7000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

1. Taylor Swift

The queen of young pop and country herself has been the epicenter of all the private jet controversy for a long time now. The biggest factor against her was the many times she allowed close friends to use her private plane to take trips of their own. Augmenting her emissions for frivolous displays for her friends. Her plane has already completed 170 flights in the first quarter of this year alone. That already makes up for most of the pollution on this list. The worst part is that this isn’t even the first time it happened. She has already been called out for this reckless behavior in the past. However, it looks like she is putting an effort into decreasing her carbon footprint which is already a step in the right direction.

Although many can take this further than it is necessary, it is also important to let celebs know that they are people just like us. As such, they aren’t above the normal struggles of everyday life if that means that they will cause so many problems to the environment. Sometimes, a 45-minute drive may not appease your impatience, but there is joy in the fact that you are collectively helping the people around you.