Taylor Swift's soaring stardom marred by carbon footprint criticism

Taylor Swift is just in the middle of the European leg of her concert tour. The singer is often talked about in the context of her widespread travels by private jet. For this reason, environmental activists have heavily criticised her for several years.

Taylor Swift may seem like just one of many contemporary pop stars. However, the American singer is a unique phenomenon in global pop culture. The phenomenal sales of her albums seem to contradict the constantly changing music consumption trends, and she sells out the largest stadiums in the blink of an eye, regardless of geographic location.

The country on the Vistula has succumbed to true "Taylor-mania." The most dedicated fans of her work occupy the entrance to the venue from the early hours to get as close as possible to their idol, with high hopes of exchanging glances with her for even a second.

At the beginning of this year, the pop star changed her mode of transportation. For several months, she has been the owner of a business jet, a Dassault Falcon 7X, worth nearly €52 million. The jet offers comfortable seats for 14 passengers, perfect for long-haul flights, and luxurious conditions that would not embarrass the owners of the most expensive hotel suites.

Unfortunately, owning a private jet also has its dark sides. Their use results in significantly higher carbon dioxide emissions compared to commercial flights. As a result, Taylor Swift ranked at the top of the list of celebrities with the highest CO2 emissions in 2022. To further illustrate the scale of this problem, the ranking authors pointed out that celebrities produced nearly 500 times more carbon dioxide than the average citizen.

In that year, the 34-year-old emitted a total of 8,293 tonnes of CO2, taking 170 flights and spending a total of almost 16 days in the air. It is worth noting that Swift was not on a world tour during that period. It was also calculated that her shortest recorded flight lasted just 36 minutes. Her spokeswoman, Tree Paine, came to the artist's defence.

Taylor's jet is loaned out regularly to other individuals. To attribute most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect, she said.

Increasing ecological awareness led the singer to reduce the number of flights by nearly 40% the following year. However, this did not satisfy environmental activists, who began to use Taylor Swift as an example of downplaying the irreversible changes leading to gradual global warming. The American thus took another step, deciding to purchase twice the required number of carbon credits to reduce the carbon footprint left by her travels around the world.

Meanwhile, opponents of the singer's unecological stance brought out more firepower. University of Florida student Jack Sweeney dedicated himself to a detailed analysis of her flights in the previous year, presenting the outcome of his weeks of work on the X portal. He proved that in 2023 the distance covered by her jets was equivalent to circling the globe 170 times. Despite significantly lower carbon dioxide emissions than the previous year, it still amounted to 83 times more than the amount produced by the average American.