Aug 17, 2022 03:22 PM
(This post was last modified: Aug 17, 2022 06:33 PM by C C.)
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/les...nvironment
EXCERPTS: You’ve seen the headlines: celebrities’ love of private air travel is an environmental nightmare. Yet as the ultrarich enter image-recovery mode — shifting responsibility to sponsors, friends, and renters — it’s still business as usual when it comes to flights by private jets.
Even after the sustainability research firm Yard published a list of the 10 celebrities responsible for the most private jet CO2 emissions on July 29, planes belonging to Taylor Swift, Floyd Mayweather, Blake Shelton, Jay-Z/PUMA, Steven Spielberg, Alex Rodriguez, and Travis Scott all continued to take flight, according to data from Celebrity Jets, a student-run Twitter account that scrapes data from the flight data and monitoring site ADS-B Exchange.
[...] And the study authors warn this mortality figure may be a “vast underestimate,” as it doesn’t include climate-related deaths caused by floods, storms, or food shortages.
“For those celebrities who are not just outspoken about the climate crisis but also proclaim concern about the inequities of environmental racism — the reality that communities of color, indigenous communities, and low-income communities are consistently sacrificed to environmental pollution and degradation — it’s not just hypocrisy that is of concern, it’s the fact that they are directly responsible for inflicting this kind of unjust harm,” van Rossum says.
[...] Experts agree that, while a blanket ban on private jets is impractical, “implementing an effective policy to diminish emissions from private air travel is possible,” says David Carlucci, former New York State senator, Green Amendment sponsor, and cosponsor of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.
He points to the actions taken by our neighbors up north. Just as American celebrities came under fire for their high emissions, Canada announced its Select Luxury Items Tax Act. This policy will add a 10% tax to the purchase of items like private jets and yachts. “They believe that the tax will make luxury travel less attractive, lowering carbon emissions from private aircraft,” Carlucci says. After all, the trend of private travel will not end on its own, “so making consumers pay for these habits and investing raised revenues into electric travel would be an ideal solution.”
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We can work to make all air travel more sustainable, too, explains Terry Tamminen, former secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency and environmental policy guru for former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Strategies could include technical mandates for more efficient jet engines, cleaner-burning fuels, incentives to develop and deploy zero-emission planes, and methods to reduce flight miles or idling engines at airports,” he says... (MORE - missing details)
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Cynic: This is older than and prior-in-rank to the political hypocrisy and virtue pretentiousness of the entertainment industry.
Progressives are exploitive capitalists first and Marxist activist imitators second. The general movement began opportunistically hijacking the socioeconomic agenda of assorted communist parties back in the early 20th-century. And likewise swiped the left's expanded social justice facelift back in the '60s (New Left), using and manipulating the offshoots of that political makeover ever since.
Capitalists are always in charge, whether it's this deceitful variety of the center-left profiting from Marxist descended (secular) altruism or the traditional, religious-based goodwill that Elmer Gantry type evangelism and applicable politicians tap.
EXCERPTS: You’ve seen the headlines: celebrities’ love of private air travel is an environmental nightmare. Yet as the ultrarich enter image-recovery mode — shifting responsibility to sponsors, friends, and renters — it’s still business as usual when it comes to flights by private jets.
Even after the sustainability research firm Yard published a list of the 10 celebrities responsible for the most private jet CO2 emissions on July 29, planes belonging to Taylor Swift, Floyd Mayweather, Blake Shelton, Jay-Z/PUMA, Steven Spielberg, Alex Rodriguez, and Travis Scott all continued to take flight, according to data from Celebrity Jets, a student-run Twitter account that scrapes data from the flight data and monitoring site ADS-B Exchange.
[...] And the study authors warn this mortality figure may be a “vast underestimate,” as it doesn’t include climate-related deaths caused by floods, storms, or food shortages.
“For those celebrities who are not just outspoken about the climate crisis but also proclaim concern about the inequities of environmental racism — the reality that communities of color, indigenous communities, and low-income communities are consistently sacrificed to environmental pollution and degradation — it’s not just hypocrisy that is of concern, it’s the fact that they are directly responsible for inflicting this kind of unjust harm,” van Rossum says.
[...] Experts agree that, while a blanket ban on private jets is impractical, “implementing an effective policy to diminish emissions from private air travel is possible,” says David Carlucci, former New York State senator, Green Amendment sponsor, and cosponsor of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.
He points to the actions taken by our neighbors up north. Just as American celebrities came under fire for their high emissions, Canada announced its Select Luxury Items Tax Act. This policy will add a 10% tax to the purchase of items like private jets and yachts. “They believe that the tax will make luxury travel less attractive, lowering carbon emissions from private aircraft,” Carlucci says. After all, the trend of private travel will not end on its own, “so making consumers pay for these habits and investing raised revenues into electric travel would be an ideal solution.”
Advertisement
We can work to make all air travel more sustainable, too, explains Terry Tamminen, former secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency and environmental policy guru for former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Strategies could include technical mandates for more efficient jet engines, cleaner-burning fuels, incentives to develop and deploy zero-emission planes, and methods to reduce flight miles or idling engines at airports,” he says... (MORE - missing details)
- - - - - -
Cynic: This is older than and prior-in-rank to the political hypocrisy and virtue pretentiousness of the entertainment industry.
Progressives are exploitive capitalists first and Marxist activist imitators second. The general movement began opportunistically hijacking the socioeconomic agenda of assorted communist parties back in the early 20th-century. And likewise swiped the left's expanded social justice facelift back in the '60s (New Left), using and manipulating the offshoots of that political makeover ever since.
Capitalists are always in charge, whether it's this deceitful variety of the center-left profiting from Marxist descended (secular) altruism or the traditional, religious-based goodwill that Elmer Gantry type evangelism and applicable politicians tap.