After Kylie Jenner posted a controversial picture of her husband, Travis Scott and her in front of their private jets captioned “you wanna take mine or yours” , the comments started filling with furious fans accusing her of being ignorant towards her carbon footprint. This led to several fans taking it upon themselves to look into her flying history, everyone on the internet was shocked and enraged when they found out that she takes flights as short as 12 minutes. Soon after, several celebrities’ ‘ reckless flying habits were exposed. With Taylor Swift topping the list with her carbon emissions going up to 8,293.54 metric tons which is more emissions than 1,184 average people would create in a year. The internet was quick to title these celebrities “climate criminals”. A common sentiment shared was that of pure anger because while a lot of people try to switch to more sustainable lifestyle options, all their efforts are simply washed away once celebrities choose to prioritize their comfort over the climate.
Celebrities have a wide and powerful platform which they can use to advocate for the right things but this platform can be equally dangerous once they use it to justify and trivialize their actions, a few “loyal fans” still stand by their favorite celebrities and many want these celebrities to be “canceled”. Whichever stance you might take there is no denying the fact that this revelation has led to many questioning the power of sustainability. It has given rise to a harmful mindset “ Why bother when our actions won’t really make any difference as long as things like this happen? Why should we use public transport or a bamboo toothbrush when people in privileged positions conveniently ignore their carbon footprint?”.
This isn’t the first instance of ignorance by people in power regarding climate change, in Bill Gates book ‘’ how to avoid a climate disaster” he points out how African communities use unsustainable methods for farming, while his intention behind the book might have been pure this statement only shows how those who are clearly in a more privileged position choose to put the blame on communities that don’t have access to resources that facilitate sustainable development or promote awareness about the same. According to a report by Oxford
Economics the Earth could warm upto 2 Celsius and the worst affected countries will be those in Africa and Asia, those living in these countries do not require a privileged person to criticise their way of living, 54% of Africa’s population works in the agricultural sector. Farming in these countries is often a generational occupation and as their ways of farming are rooted in their culture, not everyone has the power to adapt to the most advanced technology being used in the West as much as some would like to; it is often not a feasible or available option. It is wrong for people to blindly criticise cultures, people and lifestyles without having any knowledge about them.
A new advertisement pops up regularly to remind all of us that we are “uncool” for not buying metal straws. Brands have come up with new campaigns that have made environmentally friendly living “trendy”. Everyone today is expected to make greener choices because it is unacceptable to not in 2022 but this is an impossible expectation. Plastic bags are available for as cheap as ₹10 while the average market price for a cloth bag is ₹35 in India, the average monthly salary for a regular employee is less than ₹10,000 which doesn’t make the right choice feasible for everyone. Not all of us can afford to cut out single use plastic completely from our lives but that’s okay. Even if all you can do is walk to school instead of taking the bus, you are making a difference. Do we really need acting kinder towards our planet to be “cool” for us to pay attention to the environment ? Does it just take a few celebrities making the wrong choices to stop us from making the right ones?
The real climate criminal is the expectation for all of us to make the perfect choices in order to actually make a difference. Something is better than nothing, trying is good enough. I hope this article serves as a reminder that even the smallest step you can take to make a difference counts.
