Climate change has become an unavoidable issue. It has moved from something that was mentioned in the background, to now being in our backyards. Even if you are not directly being impacted, it may already have, indirectly. With this being said, as climate change becomes a huge problem, people need to be aware of it, and a good fit for a job like this is celebrities. Via the love celebrities and influencers have accumulated with their various projects and creations, they have been given a platform and influence over people. Occasionally, they use that platform to speak on important issues and movements, and climate change has become one of those issues. While it is good that celebrities are lending a hand towards the fight to save the planet, it is very likely they are the ones doing a great deal of the damage.

One of the things we’ve observed from celebrities is their lavish and expensive lifestyles. From hopping on private jets to sipping champagne in bikinis on their luxurious yachts, to having numerous cars parked up just for show, celebrities and influencers spare no expense. And these expensive luxuries are not sparing on the environment either. Information from a BBC article tells us just exactly how bad the effects of these are on the environment as it states that “there are many different models of private jet, but the Cessna Citation XLS - consistently one of the most popular - burns 189 gallons (857 liters) of aviation fuel an hour on average” (COP26: What's the Climate Impact of Private Jets?, 2021). We can gather from this article that flights produce greenhouse gasses with the fuel they burn, which can be damaging to the environment. With that being said, imagine how many private jets are used to fly to different corners of the planet, burning hundreds of thousands gallons of fuel, carrying, typically, only 10-20 of the world’s elites, and then proceed to imagine how detrimental that is to the environment!

*A yacht, similar to the one described below*

As stated before, there are numerous celebrities who have made contributions to environmental activism and for various reasons. Celebrities like Jaden Smith, Mark Ruffalo, Leonardo Dicaprio, along with some others, are known for advocating for this cause, and have used their platforms to spread awareness well. However, while their actions are well intended, it is at the same time hypocritical, at least for most of them. Take Leonardo Dicaprio for instance, who is known to be a big fighter against climate change and was even a part of the Netflix 2021 film “Don’t Look Up”, which spoke on environmental issues a ton. Even though Dicaprio is involved in all of this and takes the time to spread awareness and educate others, he still was found on his £110 million Vava II superyacht which is the largest yacht manufactured in Britain. This has led to him being called an “eco-hypocrite” for claiming to be an activist then sailing around in a boat that produces an equal amount of carbon as the average car does in a year, when sailing for 7 miles. Leonardo isn’t the first celebrity “activist” to do something like this and most definitely won’t be the last.

You can name almost any celebrity activist and find at least one way that their activism is hypocritical. Along with this, the hypocritical offenses are painful to BIPOC and low income communities, who are often the ones primarily affected by environmental issues and struggle the most with its effects. A prime example of this is the water issue in Flint Michigan. Since 2014 the people of Flint Michigan have fought to access clean and drinkable water and have put up an even larger fight just to get their voices heard. This is just one example of many where BIPOC have struggled with environmental issues, and it makes it a little annoying when some rich person hops off a private jet and tells them to change their lifestyles (which sometimes include aspects of their cultures) or start using paper straws in order to save the planet.

Besides the hypocrisies we can see, such as some of the people at climate change events and conferences traveling there via jets and other private modes of transport, but we also see some performativity, when the celebrities are praised for their environmentalism. Whenever celebrities do the bare minimum of making a donation from their bank accounts with millions in it, or saying something to their millions of followers, they are immediately praised for doing so, regardless of the fact that they risk almost nothing by doing it. We oftentimes ignore the hypocrisies, and immediately jump to praising them, while ignoring actual activists who care about and are affected immensely by these things, and are also risking everything by advocating.

In order to solve these problems we need to hold celebrities accountable especially when they decide to advocate for the environment. We need to ensure that we are supporting the right people who speak on environmental issues and that they are also holding themselves to the same standard as the things they preach. It would also be helpful if we, as a society, stop sending praise to celebrities for doing the bare minimum. It is crucial that in order to tackle this problem we all acknowledge what we have done to contribute to it, and what we can do to solve it.

SOURCES:

[1]: [COP26: What’s the climate impact of private jets?]By BBC News

[2]: [Chartering a Private Jet] By World Airport Codes

[3]: [Leonardo DiCaprio accused of being an ‘eco hypocrite’ as he holidays on 10 million yacht] By The Mirror

[4]: [Six Years Later, Flint Still Doesn’t Have Clean Water: One of the Worst Environmental Injustices in the 21st Century] By Climate X Change

[5]: [Prince Harry, Leonardo DiCaprio and other celebrities who are hypocritical on climate change] By Fox News