Perhaps no current event is more emblematic of the mass insanity under which our society currently suffers than the ongoing controversy over the gaseous emissions of pop singer/songwriter Taylor Swift. It turns out that the former nice girl from somewhere in Oklahoma has now turned into a sexed-up Hollywood monster who rivals Climate Envoy John Kerry for producing a massive carbon footprint via the use of private jets.
Here’s an excerpt from a story at Rolling Stone on the oh-so-scandalous matter:
As the world quite literally burns and floods, it’s important to remember that individualism won’t really solve the climate crisis, especially compared to, say, the wholesale dismantling of the brutal grip the fossil fuel industry has on modern society. Still, there are some individuals who could probably stand to do a bit more to mitigate their carbon footprint — among them, the super-wealthy who make frequent use of carbon-spewing private jets. (And let’s not even get started on yachts.)
While private jets are used by rich folks of all kinds, their use among celebrities has come under scrutiny recently, with reports of the likes of Drake and Kylie Jenner taking flights that lasted less than 20 minutes. In response, the sustainability marketing firm Yard put together a new report using data to rank the celebrities whose private jets have flown the most so far this year — and subsequently dumped the most carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Drake and Jenner both appear on the list, but they’re actually nowhere near the top, which is occupied by none other than Taylor Swift. According to Yard, Swift’s jet flew 170 times between Jan. 1 and July 19 (the window for the Yard study), totaling 22,923 minutes, or 15.9 days, in the air. That output has created estimated total flight emissions of 8,293.54 tonnes of carbon, which Yard says is 1,184.8 times more than the average person’s total annual emissions. (At least one more flight can be added to that list, too: The flight-tracking Twitter account Celebrity Jets notes that Swift’s plane flew today, July 29.)
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So, here we have a very popular recording artist who travels the country and the globe every year singing her silly songs to massive audiences, and the Perpetual Outrage Mob on Twitter is expressing extreme shock that engaging in that highly-profitable enterprise happens to create massive carbon emissions.