‘Kylie Jenner’s 17-minute private jet journey is a climate catastrophe’ Boston Globe last week. Reason: a photo of multimillionaire Kylie Jenner hugging her boyfriend, rapper Travis Scott, against two private jets in the background. “Do you want us to take mine or yours?” asks the 24-year-old internet celebrity under her Instagram message.
According to the automated Twitter account CelebJets, which tracks celebrity flights using publicly available information, Jenner’s July 12 trip lasted just 17 minutes. It had taken her forty minutes by car to drive from the town of Van Nuys, California, to nearby Camarillo.
The online pillory was built and the nails were sharpened. While Jenner isn’t the only super-rich celebrity to take short jet flights, she’s been denounced as a “climate criminal” by the internet.
Flight data would show that rapper Drake recently made a fourteen-minute flight. The Canadian artist responded to a news item about this by stating that the planes have no passengers on board at such short distances, but are only moved to an airport where they can be parked.
The owner of CelebJetsstudent Jack Sweeney (19), acknowledged in an interview with CNBC that his data can sometimes be misleading. Especially on short flights, it may simply be the case that the pilot drops off passengers at one airport, and then parks the plane at another, cheaper airport.
Still, many on social media wondered what the point of living more sustainably is if the richest take their jets for their short fun trips. “Kylie Jenner here chooses what color private jet she wants to take today, while I have to down my iced coffee before my paper straw becomes papier-mâché,” complains one twitterer.
According to The Guardian Only one percent of the world’s population, namely the rich, is responsible for half of the emissions associated with flying. And those flights are increasing. Never before have there been so many flights with private planes as last year, data from wingsan aviation data research agency: namely 3.3 million trips worldwide.
Make Instagram Instagram again
The profound influence of the Kardashian family became apparent this week when criticism from half-sisters Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian on Instagram provoked a response from the boss himself. Monday the sisters shared an image with the message: “Make Instagram Instagram again”, and “stop trying to be tiktok, I just want to see cute photos of my friends”.
With their dissatisfaction, the sisters, who together have almost 700 million followers, drove the boss of the social network Adam Mosseric cornered. He decided on Thursday to temporarily stop the new test version of the app, which is very similar to TikTok.
Jenner’s ostentatious display of money and power fuels the powerlessness many feel in the climate crisis. Since eating the rich isn’t an option, the internet decided to give them at least a good lecture.