here are some hyper-polluting individuals:
- the Rolling Stones’ Boeing 767 (5,046 tonnes of CO2)
- Lawrence Stroll (1,512 flights)
- Thirty-nine jets linked to 30 Russian oligarchs – (30,701 tonnes of CO2)
relevant quote:
But I will say this, a movement can’t get along without a devil, and across the whole political spectrum there is a misogynistic tendency to choose a female devil, whether it’s Anita Bryant, Hillary Clinton, Marie Antoinette, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or J.K. Rowling [or Taylor Swift]. And there’s always gonna be people who seize on any opportunity to be misogynistic. So I would advise trans people and our allies [or environmentalists] to keep in mind, that J.K. Rowling [Taylor Swift] is not the final boss of transphobia [anti-environmentalism]. She’s not our devil. The devil is the Republican Party, the Conservative Party.
—Natalie Wynn (emphasis and bracket text mine)
edit: if you can’t respond to this without using the c*nt expletive it is not helping your case lmao. mods are we okay with this? in any case, please don’t feed the trolls.
edit 2/FAQ: “but why did she threaten legal action against that college kid though?” still shitty, but refer to this comment for a good explanation of the context behind that decision.
She only threatened legal action since those memes started before when her flight movements got the attention of the right in an attempt to make her less credible of a voice speaking out against trump. And knowing how batshit insane trump cultists can be and how she’s basically the single most hated person of his base I’m not surprised that she feared for her security. Those records were public for years but the legal action only happened after someone created that meme and even fox news suddenly cared about plane emissions…
[…] For Swift, this is legitimate fear. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced actual fear for your life, but it’s crippling, and it effects your psyche. To experience that on a daily basis because of an app? You bet your goddamn ass I’m going to talk to my lawyers about what my options are.
sources/timeline for the above:
- mid 2022, the media begins scrutinizing Swift for her flying patterns
- in response, Swift’s jet drops from 19 to just over 2 flights per month
- her flights pick up slightly with the start of her massive Eras tour but still significantly less than pre-July 2022
- December 6, 2023, Swift embroiled in election conspiracy theory, basically making her MAGA’s enemy number one.
- January 30, 2024, Taylor Swift gets rid of one private jet
- February 6, 2024, news outlets first report on the cease and desist.
I think her getting mobbed is not my problem.
She’s rich enough that she can afford private security. She’s a private citizen who can decide where she goes and where she does not go.
Nothing about anything you’ve described justifies stripping other people of their rights.
If she’s being assaulted in public, that’s an actual crime, and she should invoke the legal system then.
The legal system does not entitle her to silence people sharing publicly available information. The person who shared the movement of her private jet is not to blame for her lack of security when she gets where she’s going. No one’s mobbing her on the tarmac, no one’s crowding into the airport past security without a ticket.
She is not special. She’s just an American, she’s entitled to absolutely nothing extra. Her attempt to use the law as a weapon of intimidation simply because she has money to push it around is exactly why she deserves negative attention right now.
I didn’t say anything about her trying to silence people. This is purely about keeping her and others safe. Her presence in a public airport could literally cause a riot. You must know that.
If that were true, there’d be a riot every time a very famous person goes outside for any reason.
I’m sure she’d be approached and photographed and her privacy violated as much as people can get to her in a private lounge, but unless they were to advertise she is going to a certain airport at a specific time, it’s incredibly unlikely she’d be mobbed. Ironically, flying publicly would make her movements harder to follow.
She can certainly afford to pay for 10 extra first class tickets for her staff, it’d most likely be much cheaper than owning her own jet. I’m sure the airports would also be thrilled to offer a private entrance and area for her/other famous people to be able to avoid even walking to her VIP lounge. Maybe they could help subsidize the airports instead of average people’s taxes paying for their private airports in part.
I think you know there’s a big difference between going outside and being in a crowded airport.
And, again, she doesn’t have to own the jet. She could charter one. Anyone can charter a short flight for a couple of thousand dollars.
Yes, an airport limits the amount of people, has a very high coverage of surveillance and a high ratio of security staff as well as an entry barrier and dedicated VIP areas. A generic place outside has none of that. Although feel free to elaborate on how an airport is worse for security than just being on a street, anywhere.
To your second point, sure she doesn’t need to own them like nobody else does, but the issue (for me) is not primarily that she (or anyone) owns one, but that they [private jets and private airports] exist, and they’re subsidized by us as it was pointed out above. If anything, they should be priced outrageously so using them would come down last resort or emergency situations, and the money from that could help balance the cost of the “public” infrastructure. This is a failure of the government, but equally so of the rich who choose to continue using them for their luxury.
I still don’t see what the difference between a chartered flight and a limousine is other than one is in the air and the other is on the road.
As mentioned above, airport and airlines are heavily subsidized, this includes private airports and jets. For a limo, taxes pay for the road - but everyone can drive on it, so it’d exist with or without them. Maybe a better comparison would be if she had a bus that she travelled in alone, compared to the average person that’d be equally ridiculous.
The emissions of a limo is pretty much in line with the emissions of a family car. Most people wouldn’t have a small car and a family car for when they’re alone, so even if someone is alone on a limo, they’re probably not doing much more harm than the average person.
A private jet’s emissions are significantly more per passenger than a commercial plane. Even if a private jet always flies at max capacity - which I’d bet rarely happens - it’ll cause significantly more emissions per person than a commercial plane (it’s difficult to link a source here as I’ve not found an exact number. The estimates I’ve found range between 10 to 43x. Even assuming just 10x that’s quite a difference)
How many more times? There is a difference between a private jet and a chartered flight.
I’m not sure how to respond to this, your answers lack detail or arguments to respond to. What difference does chartered Vs private make for emissions? It’s the same types of jets, just changes who actually owns them. It also makes no difference to the entire tax subsidized argument either.
As to “how many times”, as I said above I haven’t found a clear answer, but different sources claim between 10x and ~40x, even assuming the very low end of 10x, that’s a big difference. I assume the per passenger emission is hard to measure since the number of passengers on a plane make a big difference.
Either way, I believe I made my points in detail several times now, and as I said your responses don’t really raise points or include much detail to further things, so I’m going to leave it here.
You mean, besides the massive reason people are criticizing her for private flights in the first place? If we just forget about the multiple magnitudes of difference between fuel usage of a car vs a plane?
Do you understand the difference between a chartered flight and a private jet?
Also, I already said that it doesn’t mean she should fly as much as she does.
Do you know what an airport is?
Yeah I’m not really sure what your point is in all of this. It’s entirely reasonable to resent publicly funding this private luxury.
Maybe we publicly should not be subsidizing the private jet industry, private jet infrastructure, and teeny tiny little airports for ultra wealthy people.
If she wants to fly private then she has to accept what goes along with that. It is a very inefficient, environmentally harmful, selfish way to travel. Private jet flights are another great example of wealthy people leaching off the public.
When did I say it should be publicly funded? Please quote me.
It currently is. It’s currently publicly funded. That’s how private jet flights work.
That’s the entire context of all of my comments. It’s why the majority of the words in my comments here have been on the specific subject of the public expense attached to private jet ownership and infrastructure.
Her private jet costs taxpayers, most of whom can’t pay their own bills without government assistance, tremendous amounts of money.
It is reasonable for people to resent her, a billionaire, for allowing the public to pick up the tab for her outlandishly luxuriant lifestyle.
Just like when people did this to Elon Musk, tracking private jet flights is a piece of accountability. There’s nothing wrong with tracking their flights, and there is definitely something wrong with them trying to use the their money to force the legal system to silence people who are tracking their flights.
Yes, and I don’t disagree with what you have been saying.
It’s just that my point had nothing to do with any of it.
I think I made it pretty clear that if she’s willing to pay the actual cost of her transportation then we would all have fewer reasons to resent her behavior.
Flying private jets is exclusively the purview of people wealthy enough to value their time more than yours. There’s no moral or ethical way to use that infrastructure as long as it’s being publicly funded by people who can’t afford to go to the fucking doctor.
The right thing for her to do is opt out.
Because she is so wealthy, because she is so famous, because she is so influential, she has a greater obligation to actually find some fucking convictions and stick by them.
If her traveling around makes people unsafe then maybe she should stay put. That’s what any other regular person would have to do. It wouldn’t be fair, but it would be what they had to do because the system is not going to bend over backwards to accommodate them.
Taylor Swift is not special.
She is special in that her presence in a public airport would cause a riot.
Hence her being a security risk.
Hence it making sense for her to fly on private planes when she does things like cross the ocean.
Does that justify anything else? No. Why would it? She doesn’t even have to own the plane. I said in my very first post that she could charter it.
I really don’t understand why you’re being so aggressive with me or acting like I’m saying every criticism of her is wrong.
I completely agree that she should be using chartered resources. That alone dramatically reduces the amount of selfish waste involved in her jet setting.
If her presence in a public airport would cause a riot, then it seems like the law and security are ill-prepared to deal with her presence. That seems to indicate that she has inadequate security AND that law enforcement is not handling the crowd with the same sincerity they would any other kind of riot.
I think the disconnect between you and me comes from what we think the most important issues here are. I think in your estimation she is a security risk to the public in the form of ‘potentially inspiring a riot’ and that justifies (or even obligates) her use of private plane travel. Where in my estimation there is no ethical or moral use case for a publicly subsidized luxury not available to the public.
I think she’s morally obligated to opt out of a system that is immoral to begin with. I think she’s ethically required to speak out as an activist against this kind of luxury being publicly funded. I think she should be going out of her way to make sure that all of the public expense associated with her lifestyle is offset by her directly.
I don’t really think we disagree I think we just have different things that we think are important sources of criticism.
It literally wouldnt, this handwringing is unneeded for someone who does not care about you and is not doing this for security reasons
What part of ‘riot’ are you missing here? I care about all the other people who could be injured as much as I do here. Why don’t you?
What part of “airport” are you missing? People cannot flood into an airport. People in an airport cannot afford to abandon their gates to go mob some random celeb.
This is a made up problem that doesnt happen to any of the equally famous people who fly first class with zero issues.
Youre hand wringing for someone who wouldnt even give you the time of day
Got it. This never happened.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/taylor-swift-mobbed-by-fans-delays-flights-at-japan-airport/articleshow/47147634.cms?from=mdr
Because of her private flight, you mean?
Oh wait, weird, its almost like taking private flights marks your travel and makes it easier for a mob to follow you, a thing that cannot happen on public flights where you dont publicly own the plane
Kinda weird how a mob cannot spawn out of nowhere when no one in the airport knows ahead of time that youre coming, huh
It also can’t happen on chartered flights.
Which is still not the same as owning a private jet.
It can and has, which is part of the lawsuit she threatened