The ultra-wealthy’s private jets are under scrutiny

Here in drought-stricken California, we’re composting food scraps, running appliances on energy-saver mode, and letting it mellow if it’s yellow. Except for Kylie Jenner, who’s taking her private jet on 17-minute flights.

We know this thanks to @CelebJets, the Twitter account exposing the uber-rich and their clown shoe-sized carbon footprints.

Jenner became its most recent target amid backlash surrounding an Insta post featuring two jets: hers and partner Travis Scott’s.

But it all started with Elon Musk…

… as most internet drama does.

Jack Sweeney, 19, began using FAA data to track Musk’s PJ, leading the billionaire to offer him $5k to please stop. Instead, Sweeney expanded his jet-tracking and added estimated fuel use and carbon emissions, per Protocol.

• Example: @CelebJets found that country star Kenny Chesney’s recent trip from Camarillo to Monterey, California, resulted in ~2 tons of CO2 emissions.
• That ~225-mile journey is a ~4.5-hour drive. Or, he could have taken Amtrak’s Coast Starlight train and written a cool song about it.

What’s the climate impact?

Private jets are 5x-14x more polluting than commercial planes, and 50x more so than trains.

To put that into perspective, a recent 17-minute jaunt aboard Jenner’s $72m Bombardier BD 700 jet made up about a quarter of an average plebe’s annual carbon footprint, per The Guardian.

• Meanwhile, the World Inequality Lab found that the world’s 1% emit 70x as much carbon as the bottom 50%.

The question is, Will the rich be cyberbullied into more responsible forms of transit or tell everyone to eat cake?

BTW: Curious as to whose private jet use results in the most emissions? Apparently, it’s Taylor Swift.