Kylie Jenner is a makeup icon, a businesswoman, a reality star, a billionaire, and according to Twitter, a ‘climate criminal’.
The star from the Kardashians reality suffered a rough air after the public learned that she took her private jet on a 17-minute long flight from Camarillo in California to Van Nuys in California.
This trip would’ve lasted only 40 or 45 minutes by car, depending on the traffic in L.A.
Kylie Jenner: A Climate Criminal?
The statistics about Jenner’s air travel are compiled by @CelebJets, a celebrity jet tracker on Twitter. They posted her route from Ventura County to L.A. County.
A previous post sparked a backlash when the trip was set to last three minutes but was later changed when the jet landed.
This account lists the flight time, mileage, and pounds of jet fuel used for flights, as well as fuel costs and CO2 emissions.
But, it didn’t list it for Jenner’s trip.
The users on Twitter quickly condemned the celebrity and named her a “climate criminal”.
One of the users wrote that people should make a story about how Jenner uses a private jet to fly 39 miles all the time.
In fact, she uses jets like cars. She should be called out. People seem to be tired of celebs telling them how they’re destroying the planet when it’s actually them!
Some Users Defended Jenner
Several comments defended the 24-year-old celebrity.
One user said how she probably wasn’t even on the plane and that it was probably heading for maintenance. Another one wrote that people should chill out and that it’s really horrible to drive the freeway in that area.
By Friday, several days after the Tuesday flight, the star shared an Instagram photo of her and her partner Travis Scott cuddling between two jets.
She captioned it “you wanna take mine or yours?” This only fueled the controversy further. Though many of their followers praised them by writing “goals”, others didn’t have words of praise.
Some of these comments said: “girl, what am I recycling for”, “this is why we need to tax the rich”, and “this post just called me poor”.
Kylie’s representatives were contacted for comment, but they declined.
The Boom of Private Jet Travels in Hollywood
Since the pandemic started, Hollywood has noticed a rise in private jet travel.
Cast and crew members fly private or charter flights since they’re worried about getting infected or having to deal with cancellations and other travel-related complications which have been made even harder in the pandemic.
Unfortunately, the BBC notes that private flying produces more emissions per passenger than commercial options. And, this directly contributes to the climate crisis.
Doctor Debbie Hopkins, an expert in decarbonizing transport from the University of Oxford explains that large amounts of fuel are used for the takeoff and landing of planes, regardless of the people on board.
Therefore, a private jet is even worse in terms of pollution than commercial aviation.
Other celebrities who were mentioned by @CelebJets for their short flights were Drake’s 20-minute trip from Barcelona to Ibiza, Spain, and Steven Spielberg’s 24-minute flight from Teterboro to the Hamptons.
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