Taylor Swift has been busy flying back and forth to see her boyfriend but now she is facing backlash after it was revealed her private jet flights produced 138 tons of CO2 emissions in just three months.
Swift and Travis Kelce made their first public appearance together in September when the pop superstar attended a Kansas City Chiefs game, for whom he plays tight end. Then the couple publicly confirmed their relationship in November, followed by a series of PDAs on Instagram, during date nights and Swift’s concert in Argentina on November 11.
However, in an interview with Time this month, Swift revealed that they quietly began dating in July after the football star confessed to having a crush on her star during an episode of his New Heights podcast.
As their relationship continues to develop, Swift has regularly flown between New York and Kansas City to spend time with her beau. She also made trips in between performances in South America for her ongoing Eras World Tour. In the past three months alone, the pop superstar has taken more than 12 journeys on a private jet.
Instagram account Taylor Swift’s Jets shows her whirlwind romance with Kelce has produced 138 tons of CO2 emissions in three months. The singer would need to plant more than 2,200 trees to offset the damage—and people aren’t happy.
People have taken to X, formerly Twitter, to express their displeasure with Swift.
“It would take the average person worldwide 34 years to produce this much are you serious,” one person wrote.
“Just casually pushing us towards even more catastrophic climate change disasters that will destroy Third World countries like we saw this summer but its ‘okay’ bc its yalls ‘mother,’” said another.
“Every time I hear about Taylor Swift’s CO2 emissions I become filled with rage like I wish she will forever be remembered as someone who murdered the planet,” a third person commented.
“Isn’t it crazy that regular working cl ass people are pressured to change their lifestyles to minimize their CO2 emissions meanwhile f****** Taylor Swift alone is singlehandedly doing more harm to the climate than roughly a thousand people,” said another.
A fifth person added: “Wasn’t she on top of the list of CO2 emissions for 2022 as well? Some 8000 metric tons! There are no ethical billionaires.”
However, not everyone has come for the singer-songwriter, as some people don’t seem to care.
“Good for her. May she continue to use fossil fuels at her leisure,” one person wrote.
“This is funny. Their love for each is so f****** hot that the planet itself is warming up,” another joked.
A third added: “Climate was already bad even before Taylor Swift was born. Her emissions aren’t the only ones that contribute to CO2 emissions. There are a lot of factors due to which it happens. Go sit in a geography class before ranting s*** on here.”
This isn’t the first time that the “Karma” singer’s CO2 emissions have been in the spotlight. In 2022, Swift was named the biggest celebrity polluter of the year following a report by environmentally-oriented marketing firm Yard.
Based on their regular usage of private jets, the report compiled a list of the top greenhouse gas-emitting celebrities using publicly available data. After topping the list, Swift, who has campaigned for Democrats and spoken out about climate change, faced backlash online. A spokesperson for Swift pushed back on the report following its release.
According to the report, private jets produce the most emissions per passenger as a form of air travel. Yard assembled statistics from the Celebrity Jets Twitter account, which tracks the private jet travel of celebrities, with data going back to the start of the year and covering the number of flights taken by each celebrity, average flight time, miles and greenhouse gas emissions.
Swift came out on top, with a total of 170 flights on her private jet that added up to nearly 16 days in the air since the beginning of the year.
“Quite a large amount considering that she is not currently touring,” noted the report.
The singer’s flights lasted an average of just 80 minutes, the shortest being a 36-minute trip from Missouri to Nashville. Swift’s total flight emissions for 2022 equaled nearly 8,300 metric tons of greenhouse gases, which is 1,200 times more than the average person’s annual emissions.
However, Swift’s representative rejected the report’s conclusions.
“Taylor’s jet is loaned out regularly to other individuals,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Newsweek. “To attribute most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect.”
