Opinion: Taylor and the Jets

Jack Sweeney is a junior at the University of Central Florida and an amateur aviation enthusiast. In his adolescence, Sweeney enjoyed using flight tracking software to keep tabs on his pilot father. Nowadays, he’s gained notoriety for a number of social media accounts dedicated to documenting the flight paths and estimated carbon footprints of numerous public figures’ private jets. Sweeney has long defended the practice under the notion that the FAA and hobbyist’s broadcasts from which the data is sourced are public information that can be accessed by anybody and by claiming that he is tracking celebrities' jets, not the celebrities themselves.  

Previously, Sweeney came under fire from billionaire Elon Musk. The then newly-minted Twitter (Now X) CEO, a self-proclaimed champion of free speech, originally claimed his “commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk.” However, @ElonJet would be banned a few months later following a reported incident involving Elon and Grimes’ son being stalked in a car. 

Sweeney’s several other accounts on the platform, including his personal account, were then suspended the next day. According to the updated Twitter TOS, real-time tracking of individuals was against the rules, which prompted Sweeney to ask Elon directly how much of a delay is required for this type of information to be published on the site. Eventually, Musk would simply offer to buy the account from Sweeney, essentially trying to pay him off in exchange for cessation of his tracking activities. The $5,000 offered by Musk was countered with a request for $50,000 by Sweeney, which wasn’t accepted. It is believed that negotiations broke down there. 

Other celebrities and public figures have seen their flight patterns subject to Sweeney’s documentation, including a number of Russian oligarchs, former President Trump, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, retired boxing champion Floyd Mayweather, and most notably, pop-icon Taylor Swift. During recent months, Swift has come under intense scrutiny from critics of her purportedly enormous carbon footprint. In light of a report from digital marketing firm Yard compiled using CelebrityJets posts, the list placed her as the top celebrity carbon emitter of the year 2022. When contacted by Rolling Stone for comment, a representative for Swift claimed “Taylor’s jet is loaned out regularly to other individuals. To attribute most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect.” 

Public figures, especially those of Taylor’s magnitude, are regularly subject to harassment from paparazzi and adoring fans alike. Their privacy is constantly in question, it is simply a fact of life for most celebrities. Obviously, this reality is not a great one, as everyone, regardless of celebrity status, should be allowed to live their lives in peace, but to what extent? What’s the more morally questionable stance- sitting idly and watching these powerful individuals accrue several lifetimes worth of carbon emissions in the span of months- or potentially invading the privacy of somebody with more money than God? Does Sweeney’s behavior constitute stalking- or is it like he says- the only thing being tracked is the jet. According to Taylor Swift and her legal team, his actions are grounds for “stalking and harassment,” as they outlined in a cease-and-desist letter received by Sweeney in December. 

Due to the attention from Taylor’s ongoing Eras Tour and relationship with Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce, her habitual private jet usage once again came to the forefront of public attention. Following Kelce and the Chief’s victory over the Ravens, discussion strengthened ahead of Super Bowl Sunday as fans speculated whether or not Swift’s concert in Tokyo would prevent her from making it to the game in Vegas mere hours later. The situation was highly publicized, even being addressed in a tweet by the Japanese Foreign Ministry, “Despite the 12-hour flight and 17-hour time difference, the Embassy can confidently Speak Now to say that if she departs Tokyo in the evening after her concert, she should comfortably arrive in Las Vegas before the Super Bowl begins.” 

One estimate, courtesy of University of Michigan’s co-director of the Center for Sustainable Systems Gregory Keoleian, placed Swift’s tour in Japan and subsequent trip back to Vegas at producing more carbon emissions than that would be made by a single-family in their home in a year. Swift’s management team reported to AP that, “Taylor purchased more than double the carbon credits needed to offset all tour travel,” however the efficacy of this practice has been called into question. Carbon Credits are one method used by businesses and wealthy individuals to try and counteract highly polluting activities like flight or the burning of fossil fuels. Certificates are purchased which supposedly equate to a certain amount of carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas to be removed from the environment. Oftentimes carbon credits rely on cutting-edge, questionably effective carbon-capture techniques. One report from The Guardian published in September 2023 determined, “A total of 39 of the top 50 emission offset projects, or 78% of them, were categorized as likely junk.” While Swift and other carbon credit customers’ hearts might’ve been in the right place, in all likelihood their money did little to undo any environmental damage. 

The undeniable inefficacy of the majority of carbon credit companies is a massive concern, for a number of reasons. From now on, any start-ups or organizations with actual effective solutions will be looked upon with suspicious eyes. It’ll be hard for any real progress to breakthrough now that the entire space has been invaded and overrun by grifters. Individual celebrities and companies may also be discouraged from the practice altogether after experiencing what essentially amounts to a sustainability scam. If we want the impacts of climate change to be lessened, it is imperative that those most responsible for emissions be on-board with any efforts to reverse our course. The efforts of the masses mean very little when an enormous amount of the problem stems from such a concentrated populace of powerful individuals. No amount of soggy paper straws or plastic bag-bans are going to make up for the utter indifference of those at the top of the food chain. Our power is miniscule in comparison to those who are making the decisions most impactful to us all, and whenever possible they will squash any efforts to minimize their power or shake their influence. Jack Sweeney is a man who chose to publicly shame the dangerously irresponsible behavior of these famous individuals, and in-turn they made every effort to silence him. 

Artists as famous as Swift take their acts around the globe, and to transport a concert of that scale involves an immense amount of carbon emissions. World Tours have long been a sign of success for a musician, denoting their worldwide influence, but few have tried to use that influence in a way which minimizes their harmful impacts. Recently, Coldplay has pledged on their Music of the Spheres stadium tour that they’ll make every effort to counteract the carbon-heavy nature of world touring. In an update published at the midpoint of the tour, they claimed to have reduced their estimated carbon footprint by 47% when compared to their previous world tour. Through the implementation of an Electric Vehicle fleet to transport tour gear and materials, lights and sound equipment being powered by a “kinetic dance floor” that claims to collect the kinetic energy created by the crowd’s dancing, encouraging non-car travel to their shows, and a number of other creative efforts, they reached an impressive 47% reduction as estimated by independent expert assessors from MIT. This is the type of dedication that we need to see more of from our celebrities- using their immense influence and bottomless wallets to chip away at these problems. Coldplay says that their work is still not done, not just in terms of there being several months left in the tour, but also in terms of reaching their intended fifty percent reduction goal. 

It is worth noting the disproportionate negative publicity that Swift has received for her placement on the list in comparison to some of her contemporaries who’d also been named by Yard’s previously mentioned report on celebrity emissions. In a revised report released by Yard which tried to account for the size and fuel consumption of each celebrities’ jet, Drake actually fell into 2nd place closely behind Swift. Jay-Z, Blake Shelton, and Travis Scott were also among the top ten offenders named in the original report- and yet the media coverage or public criticism they’ve received for it has been non-existent in comparison to that which Swift has seen. Yard does clarify on their site that due to the nature of the data, they’re unable to confirm whether the aforementioned celebrities were actually using the jets themselves or if they were being lent to/used by others. 

Regardless, it seems that Swift’s flights are being intensely scrutinized while many other celebrities are left to pollute as they please. Part of this increased scrutiny may be rooted in misogyny and a sort of contrarian attempt at expressing disdain for something which is popular, especially when that popularity is an audience comprised majorly of women. There are some very valid arguments that critics of Swift could make, but more often than not their vehement opposition to her appears, to me and to others, to stem from a sort of inherent desire to hate on what others hold in very high regard. 

The tendency to hate on popular things isn’t new at all. It makes people feel cool to be ‘different’ when their opinion differs so greatly from what they perceive as the majority. This could be said about any number of situations, not just music criticism or celebrity gossip. The pattern goes as follows: once a negative opinion (or even in some cases simply an indifference) has been formed and the person who holds that opinion sees that there’s a lot of people who are incredibly passionate in opposition, instead of simply ignoring that celebrity/artist/thing they dislike they’ll go out of their way to further project their disdain. It isn’t like Swift is the first or the only artist to be subject to contrarian hatred. I’ve also noticed a lot of this similar polarizing energy directed towards Drake. 

You are allowed to not like Taylor Swift, it’s not a crime or anything, but many of those who are so passionately opposed to her existence seem to just be outing themselves as sexist hypocrites who’ll gladly turn a blind eye to irresponsibly polluting behavior as long as it’s their favorite artist doing the pollution. If you care about sustainability and holding celebrities accountable, you must be unbiased in doing so, instead of picking-and-choosing who deserves criticism when they’re all acting with the same selfish and irresponsible mindset. Arguing over which celebrities are worse than others is entirely irrelevant, and actively hinders any efforts to hold all of them equally accountable for their irresponsibility and disregard for any environmental concern. 

Jack Sweeney continues his tracking activities through the website grndcntrl.net and in a handful of Instagram accounts, seemingly unperturbed by the legal threats which he and lawyers deemed ‘meritless.’ I suggest that anyone reading this should either visit his site or go follow his Instagram account @celebrityjets. His effort, while little, demonstrates one step towards holding those most rich and powerful people accountable for the irrevocable environmental damage which they continue to cause. He must not be silenced, his message must be amplified until something is done about private jets. Their usage demonstrates a gross indifference, a plague of selfishness who’s worst effects will be avoided by its most responsible perpetrators.