Taylor Swift, Big Oil and Soggy Paper Straws

Taylor Swift has topped yet another chart this week but it's not a billboard top 100 this time. A report from a sustainable marketing firm, Yard, recently calculated the emissions from the private jets of famous celebrities and if the findings are to be believed, Taylor Swift’s private jet was in use for 170 out of the first 200 days of the year and it emitted close to 8000 metric tonnes of CO2e, which is 1200 times what a normal person emits each year. While Swift’s representatives have tried to do some damage control by claiming that the jet was also loaned out to others and wasn't always used by her, this has done little to quell the internet.

Swift has a huge social media following and just like any other celebrity, her sway on her fans and the overall generational culture is immense. This puts her and the other celebrities of her kind, atop a pedestal where they yield a great degree of power in terms of setting aspirational standards for literally billions of people. Watching rich and famous people dress a certain way or eat a certain food ends up influencing fashion and food choices even in regions and among ages that are distant from the celebrity’s own fan base. (No one analyses it better than Miranda from The Devil Wears Prada here). The same has been a major reason behind Swift’s criticism post the aforementioned finding. What is more interesting is how it has sparked a discussion on individual climate action yet again. At a point in time when ordinary working class people, even in the west, are experiencing a lifestyle change first hand (increasing power bills or reduced convenience of plastic items, because, well, climate change), watching a celebrity undo all their efforts so easily can be frustrating. And it is rightfully so - after all, how can someone richer and more privileged than me get to pollute while I need to suffer? (oh the irony of developed world folks bashing Taylor like they don't lead extravagant wasteful lifestyles too)

While it is important to discuss amassing of wealth and how it gets used to damage the environment further, blaming Taylor is not solving climate change. Quite contrarily, it is further delaying action and playing right into the big corporations' hands where they evade responsibility by pushing it on individuals.

Here's an interesting fact - the term 'individual carbon footprint' was actually popularized by none other than the oil giant, British Petroleum. The company hired a marketing agency, Ogilvy & Mather, to popularize the narrative that climate change is not the fault of Big Oil but that of individuals who demand the fuel. In 2004, BP also launched a carbon calculator to let people measure their own footprint and act on it. Other Big Oil companies followed suit and ran lavishly funded PR campaigns that drilled the concept of individual action and responsibility into our psyche. This technique has also been used by the tobacco industry to shift the blame for its harms (such as underage smoking) on to individuals.

The term carbon footprint has since caught on. Growing up, we have all read and written essays on '5 things that we can do to save Mother Earth'. It instills a sense of responsibility among people, which isn't wrong. But it also shifts attention from the fact that a handful of big corporations significantly contribute to the mammoth of a problem that is global warming. It also pits one individual against the other where the one with more privilege gets to set the standards of a 'correct lifestyle' - a relevant example would be the rise of the elite veganism movement (not to be confused with veganism in general). It stifles public discourse on action against lobbying by big corporations that perpetuates environmental damage, letting governments and public servants pocket millions while delaying climate action.

So are we wrong in blaming Taylor for flying her private jet around polluting the world? I think not. But the discussion cannot just end at surface level. We need to dig deeper into understanding what lets some people amass wealth - the private jet type wealth. More importantly, what has enabled such luxuries to even exist in the first place and who benefits from them. You don't have to look very far - around a year ago, we witnessed the birth of a new kind of ultra-rich luxury - space flights, and that was hardly criticized. Such is the impact of Big Oil’s ‘individual carbon footprint’ narrative on our collective social psyche that the responsibility of the actual polluter never even crosses our mind.

Also, while we blame Taylor for flying her private jet, would we also discuss the avoidable commercial flights taken for vacationing? And while we are at it, how about those car rides to the cafe that’s just around the corner of the block? If not that, what about the cab rides that could have been replaced by public transport? The answer delves into a discussion on relative privilege and who defines the difference between a need and a luxury. Is it the bulk of the middle class people who can afford cars but not private jets or is it the poor and the marginalized who have access to neither? What is the baseline? I don't think the answer is that simple.

But coming back to the main debate here, we need to do a better job at holding corporations to account. Their political lobbying, spot on PR campaigns and denialism has long delayed climate action and still continues to do so. Those carbon offsets afterall, that are enabling the ‘net zero’ aren't all that good and need to be looked into critically. I've written more about it here. Corporations continue with blatant greenwashing under the pretext of ESG by delaying stricter regulations through political campaign fundings. Democracy is powerful but corporate lobbying contaminates the sanctity of our institutions, making them mere puppets of the rich people.

You using a soggy paper straw cannot solve climate change alone. Taylor Swift taking the bus and not her private jet cannot solve climate change alone. But the corporations and politicians who can solve climate change are running scot free, delaying actions and hence intensifying harms. Hold. Them. To. Account.