Jack Sweeney, a current student at the University of Central Florida, has gained traction online for his effort to “innovate the field of aircraft tracking analysis, social media tracking accounts, and TheAirTraffic” (Sweeney). Along with his efforts to make flight information more accessible, Jack has an impressive collection of X accounts that follow a wide range of celebrities and their private jets. Following several individuals including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, and Drake, along with the location of approximately 30 private jets belonging to Russian oligarchs. Sweeney utilizes public data sources including the Federal Aviation Administration, OpenSky Network, and Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast. He reports on a wide range of statistics from celebrity and political air travel. Below is an example of one of his automatic postings:
Most shocking to viewers are the cost and emission reports under Sweeney’s posts. The CO2 emission reports are staggering, and the repetitive usage of private aviation has created severe cause for concern amongst conservationists and taxpayers in the United States and abroad.
The recent posts from the Taylor Swift account are cause for the most amount of concern, with some of Taylor’s flights lasting only minutes. Critics and fans have been arguing Swift should opt for car or bus, rather than using thousands of gallons of jet fuel and releasing tons of CO2 emissions just to travel from city to city. These shocking numbers have led a variety of meme pages online to poke fun at the pop star, Know Your Meme, an internet database that explores the background of internet trends reports, “after some drama last week with Kylie Jenner’s three-minute flights, some investigation was done into the amount of pollution coming from private jet usage of celebrities. And it was uncovered that Taylor Swift herself has a much greater carbon footprint than any other celebrity, at nearly 8,300 tonnes of pollutants being released into the atmosphere… as the backlash started, a PR person on Taylor’s team made things possibly even worse by explaining that Taylor rents out the private jets, so most of these emissions aren’t from her. Which has made people more angry, because they can’t see what reason Taylor would have for renting out jets” (Rhodes). Here are some of the most memorable examples from the Internet over the past two weeks:
According to a study by Transport and the Environment, a well recognized environmental group based in the UK, private jets cause over 50% of global aviation emissions. The shocking part of this, just over 1% of people are responsible for this large number (Simon and Earl). With such a small number of people responsible for such a large release of carbon emissions in the air, climate experts have begun to worry about the long term effects private aircraft ownership will have on the environment.
According to CBS News, “In 2020, only about 0.0008% of the world’s population owned a private jet… Nonetheless, that year private flights in the U.S. pumped as much greenhouse gas pollution into the atmosphere as all bus travel in the country” (Ivanova).
Not only should environmentalists be concerned about this dense ownership of private aviation, “Private-jet owners also benefit from the use of nearly 3,000 airports around the U.S. that don’t receive scheduled commercial flights but still receive public funding, largely in the form of taxes and fuel surcharges on those commercial flights” (Ivanova). If the United States began a 10% tax on the purchase of used aircraft and a 5% on new aviation construction, the United States would have seen about $2.6 billion raised last year. That taxing could be used to fund newer and greener transit projects, leveling the playing field for the other 99% who use public transit in the US.
Overall, Jack Sweeney’s efforts to make air traffic statistics more accessible to American taxpayers and conservationists has proved to be critical in the fight against carbon emissions. His accounts on X have begun the implementation of holding celebrities, politicians, and companies responsible for the large chunk of carbon emissions that are entering our atmosphere. This effort must continue in order to see any change in state and national policy. (Until then, the memes are pretty funny.)
Citations
Ivanova, Irina. “Private Flights Have Boomed since the Pandemic. Are Taxpayers Picking up the Tab?” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 2 May 2023, www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-private-jets-carbon-emissions-tax/#.
“Jack Sweeney.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Feb. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Sweeney.
Murphy, Andrew, and Valintin Simon. “Private Jets: Can the Super Rich Supercharge Zero-Emission Aviation?” Transport & Enviroment, www.transportenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2021_05_private_jets_FINAL.pdf. Accessed 19 Feb. 2024.
O’malley, Isabella. “Why Taylor Swift’s Globe-Trotting in Private Jets Is Getting Scrutinized.” AP News, AP News, 8 Feb. 2024, apnews.com/article/taylor-swift-climate-jet-carbon-emissions-kelce-chiefs-02ac425d24281bd26d73bfdf4590bc82.
Rhodes, Rebecca. “10 Memes about the Taylor Swift Private Jet Drama.” Know Your Meme, Know Your Meme, 1 Aug. 2022, knowyourmeme.com/editorials/collections/10-memes-about-the-taylor-swift-private-jet-drama.
Sweeney, Jack. Social Links, grndcntrl.net/links/. Accessed 19 Feb. 2024.
Sweeney, Jack. “Taylor Swift Jets (Tracking) (@swiftjetnextday) …” X, twitter.com/SwiftJetNextDay. Accessed 19 Feb. 2024.
University of Central Florida, www.ucf.edu/. Accessed 19 Feb. 2024.
