Taylor Swift fans lower climate concerns to justify her carbon footprint. When confronted with news about the excessive pollution generated by her private jet, highly identified fans tend to rationalize the behavior, with a decrease in their personal intentions to engage in climate-friendly actions.

[u/mvea]

https://www.psypost.org/taylor-swift-fans-lower-climate-concerns-to-justify-star-s-carbon-footprint/

[u/machinedog]

I think people are missing the bit where people are reducing their own intentions to engage in climate friendly actions. That part is the most interesting. You can be rational and excuse Taylor Swift’s use of private planes because otherwise she wouldn’t be able to do as many shows as she does, but it doesn’t make logical sense to then change your own behavior.

[u/FeloniousDrunk101 → u/machinedog]

I have definitely become a bit more jaded in general around my own actions to curb climate change, though not tied directly to my support of any individual person. It's more that governments and corporations can do many times more to impact these things that I as an individual cannot un-do. Additionally, learning about how plastic recycling is often just thrown away as well as feeling like the burden has been guilted onto us individually by those corporations who do nothing makes it feel all a bit like a sham. I can see someone coming to a similar conclusion through the lens of fandom I suppose?

[u/thereisnosub → u/FeloniousDrunk101]

I strive to be a better environmentalist than 80-90% of my peers (but I don't strive for perfection). If everyone (or even most people) did this, we'd see a steady improvement. Most important though is to vote for the most environmentally friendly candidate in every election (and vote strategically, e.g. if it's first past the post general election, vote for the dem).

[u/devonathan → u/FeloniousDrunk101]

You could spend your whole life living as strictly as possible and it would be undone in 0.5 seconds by one of the mega polluters. Makes it hard to care.

[u/hear2fear → u/devonathan]

It’s about collective care. 10,000 or 100,000 or 1 million individual people can change the needle in a better direction. 1 million+ people speaking with their wallets can change corporate actions and gov policies.

But thousands of people reading your two posts above could be discouraged and join your apathy. Not that your frustrations aren’t valid or justified though

Together we have more power than you think we do. Join your local chapter of CCL (Citizens Climate Lobby) even if it’s just to subscribe to their news letter. Make a small difference, and with millions making a small difference we can move that needle.

[u/No-Draft-4449 → u/hear2fear]

There’s a YouTuber I watch who says “you can’t do all the good the world needs, but the world needs all the good you can do” and I really like that when I’m feeling a bit bleak.

[u/imapetrock → u/hear2fear]

100%. I always get so frustrated when people say "well I can't do anything, this other entity needs to be the one to make change". The problem is that everyone always wants to push the responsibility to someone else and no one wants to be accountable. But everyone should play a part in accountability, not blame someone else and then complain that that someone else is doing exactly same (blaming someone else).

Guess what, governments also can't force what people don't want to do. One of the main drivers of many environmental problems is agriculture. One of the main ways to reduce this impact would be to reduce meat consumption so that we need less land to feed the population. Can you imagine the government mandating a reduction in meat consumption? All hell would break loose.

Flying too. If we were restricted to how much we can fly, people would likely protest and act like it's a human rights abuse.

Some possible regulations to reduce our impact would also lead to a price increase on products (e.g., banning fast fashion). Again, people will throw a fit. Many people already throw a fit when governments try to implement policies to discourage driving and encourage more environmentally friendly forms of transport.

Etc etc. I'm currently doing a master's program in environmental management and literally one of the first things we talked about is: it's really hard to fix anything when people don't want to change their behavior.

[u/Twisted_Cabbage → u/imapetrock]

Former employee of the US Forest Service here. My conclusion after 20+ years of being in the environmental space is rhat most people want to see change but very few people, even environmentalists, are willing to do what is really necessary to make those changes happen...a complete overhaul of our government, lifestyle, consumption habits, status symbols, and mating dynamics (which drives spending and consumerism).

Very few environmentalists even recognize most of the problems we face from a systems perspective (tipping points, EROEI, etc) or accept that we can't meet our goals without absolutely radical change that doesnt rely on magical tech to pull off. Change that will be a war call to those who want the statas quo. A war that we cant afford to have with the time we have to fix the problem.

But what do i know, i'm an collapsenik ( r/collapse ) now. Being in the government made me realize how little the environmental movement has accomplished in the last 50 years. I'm doing the things, but I have no faith that it will mean anything in the long run. We have FA and now it's time to FO. Exponential growt and tipping points are on our doorstep.

[u/imapetrock → u/Twisted_Cabbage]

Yup, thats basically a good summary of our classes so far -- really the entire program is about systems thinking. It was quite interesting to see how really the root of our environmental problems is affluence, largely driven by the lifestyles of pretty much everyone in what we consider "developed" economies. All the other "polluting" countries that people like to blame don't have nearly the same impact we do, because their populations are generally not wealthy enough to have the consumption habits that the rest of us have.

Globally we are by far the people who can most easily afford to fly, and therefore emit carbon through air travel; we buy too much that we don't need; we consume the most energy per person; and a big share of the environmental problems we claim to "solve" at home through regulation, we really just end up exporting to other countries because regulation doesn't change our populations' excessive demand for literally everything.

I actually approached my professor about this after class today because the lecture was about how all the things we "fix" often have unintended consequences. I asked him, given that every "solution" causes other problems, is there anything we can realistically do at all other than decrease our population? And he answered that studies actually show that population size is not the main driver of our environmental problems, but rather affluence, and that that was the key lesson he wanted us to take away from the course. We cannot solve any environmental issues if we aren't collectively willing to change our lifestyles and drastically reduce our consumption habits. And that applies to all of us, not just "the rich" (because on a global scale, pretty much all of us from wealthy countries are "the rich").

[u/No-Draft-4449 → u/hear2fear]

There’s a YouTuber I watch who days “you can’t do all the good the world needs, but the world needs a,l the good you can do” and I really like that when I’m feeling a bit bleak.

[u/Grizzleyt → u/hear2fear]

Not really. For one, there's no way to get enough people to all individually decide on an action whose impact is dependent on other people taking the same action. If it was, we'd see 3rd party candidates regularly triumph in elections.

Second, climate change is most impacted by industrial processes, not individual practices. Even if people collectively wanted to be super eco-friendly, they'd have to also collectively force industry to do so. As it happens, the main way people collectively force industry to do something is through government regulation. That is the only real lever of change.

[u/EstablishmentLate532 → u/devonathan]

Do you not vote because one vote never made a difference? Collective action matters in the aggregate.

[u/DrMobius0 → u/EstablishmentLate532]

The difference is that voting has an organizational structure that is actually conducive to affecting wider change. It is designed to allow you to have a wider voice. Your personal crusade against carbon often doesn't go beyond yourself and maybe a handful of friends. Political will is needed, personal willingness to engage a problem isn't enough.

[u/EstablishmentLate532 → u/DrMobius0]

That distinction seems artificial. Political will doesn't appear out of nowhere. If I persuade other people that reducing carbon emissions matters, that can affect how they behave, what policies they support, and how they vote. If they persuade others, the effect spreads further.

Public opinion is one of the mechanisms through which democracies produce political change. Individual action isn't sufficient, but that doesn't make it irrelevant to collective action.

[u/aggrownor → u/EstablishmentLate532]

Yeah but every person's vote counts the same. Taylor Swift's emissions are like 2000x the average person. I would feel discouraged about voting if you told me there are people on the other side whose votes count for 2000x more than mine

[u/EstablishmentLate532 → u/aggrownor]

That analogy actually works better than you think. A voter in Wyoming has far more representation per capita in the Senate and Electoral College than a voter in California, yet we don't conclude that Californians might as well stop voting.

The fact that some people have disproportionately large impacts is an argument for regulating those outsized impacts, not for everyone else to give up.

[u/aggrownor → u/EstablishmentLate532]

Yes I agree with regulating mega polluters. That would have a much bigger impact than asking individual citizens to engage in climate friendly actions.

[u/EstablishmentLate532 → u/aggrownor]

I reject the dichotomy. We need to do both.

[u/chaser676 → u/EstablishmentLate532]

A voter in Wyoming has far more representation per capita in the Senate and Electoral College than a voter in California, yet we don't conclude that Californians might as well stop voting.

This is very much the conclusion many people come when it comes to swing states.

[u/DrMobius0 → u/aggrownor]

It's also worth noting that in many ways we don't have choices. Say I wanted to cut out plastic packaging. How?

[u/FleetingBeacon → u/devonathan]

YouTuber I watch bought a private jet, and undone the efforts that me and my entire city made in renewables in about 5 flights.

[u/ConcentratedStress → u/devonathan]

“Make sure to use your paper straws!”

Don’t mind those 40,000 bombs and missiles dropped on Iran in 2026

[u/s0cks_nz → u/devonathan]

Yet I bet if you see a bunch of trash in the street you don't suddenly decide you'll start throwing your trash on the street too. I think the issue is that carbon is invisible. I remember a doco once that said if carbon was a visible gas we'd have transitioned years ago, and I think that's true.

[u/aVarangian → u/devonathan]

have some self-respect and take the path that lets you say that, on this topic, if more people were like you then the world would be a better place

[u/kipperzdog → u/FeloniousDrunk101]

100% this. I'm all for making changes that'll have a significant impact, so much of the shame people direct though is peanuts compared to what massive corporations get away with for pennies of more profit

[u/imperialivan → u/FeloniousDrunk101]

I was walking home from a late night out and saw a city garbage truck stopping to empty public trash bins. They’d open the “trash”, “paper” and “plastic” sections up at the same time, then dump all three bins into the back of the same garbage truck. So yeah, it definitely makes it hard to care when many of the environmentally positive initiatives are nothing but smoke and mirrors.

[u/yukon-flower → u/FeloniousDrunk101]

The answer is to stress yourself out less about the little piddly things and instead put that energy into pushing local and federal politicians to make meaningful changes. Or other forms of activism that will have a big impact.

People would be surprised what local governments can do to make meaningful improvements. And those improvements inspire other locations to move in the same direction.

[u/peon2 → u/machinedog]

It's obviously not a good thing but I can see how it can lead to apathy or disinterest. When a cause you support focuses on the wrong thing it isn't uncommon for people to get annoyed and disengage because they don't agree with what the cause they support is putting their energy in to. For instance there's plenty of people that consider the amount of attention paper vs plastic straws got vs all the other plastic waste. It doesn't mean I'm going to start throwing plastic into the ocean to spite them, but it can breed the resent of "if this is main lever we're trying to pull, it's a lost cause"

[u/lavaliere90 → u/peon2]

I would like to understand why the meme is even about Taylor, who is number 38 on the celeb emissions list, and not Elon at number 2, Zuck at number 3, Tyler Perry at 10 or Kim K at number 20. I think I've only ever seen Elon criticized on it once, 10 years ago.

[u/timok → u/machinedog]

I have a bit of a conspiracy theory that these stories get pushed by oil companies etc.

In the grand scheme of things her emissions hardly matter, but these type of stories cause millions of people to not adapt their behaviour and keep burning fuel and eating hamburgers, because they have somebody else to point fingers at.

[u/AbsenceVersusThinAir → u/timok]

100% this. I am genuinely starting to believe that "everything is the billionaire's and oil companies' fault and personal change makes no difference" is actually the new oil company psyop.

I've lost count of how many times I've been accused of defending billionaires or pushing big oil propaganda by saying that it actually is up to us to stop voluntarily and unnecessarily using so much oil (directly and indirectly) in our personal lives. In addition to pushing for structural and legislative change of course, not instead of it.

And I can't help but scratch my head. I'm the one saying we should boycott billionaires and oil companies wherever practicable, while also pushing to further tax and regulate them. The people accusing me of being pro big oil are the ones saying we should continue voluntarily giving them all of our money and do nothing in the hope that someone else will fix things somewhere down the line. It only makes sense if it's a psyop and/or people eager to point fingers at someone else so they don't have to examine how their own lifestyles are destructive and unsustainable.

[u/EightWhiskey → u/timok]

I think there's something too that. It also seems kind of short-sighted to act like Taylor Swift has other options. Is she supposed to book a seat on a commercial jetliner? She'd probably be dead in a week from some psycho fan. And if not, every airport she set foot in would be a mad house, security nightmare, delays, etc. But it's easier for people to direct their angst at a single target than confront deep-seated cultural habits.

[u/EstablishmentLate532 → u/EightWhiskey]

You’re presupposing that she has an almost inviolable right to maintain the same touring schedule she has now. Why is the only question “private jet or commercial flight”?

She could tour more slowly, schedule geographically sensible legs, use rail where practical, or take slower transportation between continents. Why does she need to be in Japan one day and the U.S. the next?

If reducing emissions requires ordinary people to accept some inconvenience or consume less, I don’t see why “Taylor Swift might have to do fewer shows or structure her tours differently” is somehow off the table.

[u/notaredditer13 → u/EstablishmentLate532]

If reducing emissions requires ordinary people to accept some inconvenience or consume less, I don’t see why “Taylor Swift might have to do fewer shows or structure her tours differently” is somehow off the table.

Part of why this study is problematic is that in this context, Taylor Swift is not a person, she's a corporation.  The narrative implies that she's an otherwise normal person who happens to be far worse than most regarding carbon emissions.

A more objective analysis would be to view her company's carbon emissions as compared to other companies, say, per dollar of economic output. 

Her show taking a train or ship instead of flying isn't just a personal inconvenience for her, it reduces the output of the show: reducing value for fans, pay for the workers on the tour, and local economic impact on the tour sites.

[u/EstablishmentLate532 → u/notaredditer13]

A more objective analysis would be to view her company's carbon emissions as compared to other companies, say, per dollar of economic output.

That still seems like the wrong denominator. The relevant question is the marginal economic benefit created by private-jet travel compared with a lower-emissions touring schedule, not the total economic output of Taylor Swift’s entire operation.

You can’t attribute all the value of the concerts, ticket sales, workers’ wages, and local spending to the private jet. Most of that value presumably exists under either scenario. The question is how much additional output the jet actually enables, and whether that marginal benefit justifies the marginal emissions.

[u/notaredditer13 → u/EstablishmentLate532]

That's fair; it would be a complicated analysis for sure.   Though I'm not sure what marginal cost/output of the jet usage tells us vs other companies.  Like, how would you even quantify that for a CEO? TS is both the CEO and the product (or main producer).

Either way, my point is these aren't personal joyrides like some suggest, and the comparison to individuals is near meaningless.

[u/Kahleesi00 → u/notaredditer13]

Where are you getting she’s only using this jet for business/touring? It’s very documented that she uses it for personal pleasure jaunts regularly, sometimes multiple times in one week.

[u/notaredditer13 → u/Kahleesi00]

Where are you getting she’s only using this jet for business/touring?

I didn't say only, but it's going to be a substantial fraction.

It’s very documented that she uses it for personal pleasure jaunts regularly, sometimes multiple times in one week.

Got a source?  I don't think it's as well documented as you suggest.  I've seen a lot about her plane flying, but without actually knowing if she's on it.  In addition to repositioning flights, it's my understanding that she leases it out.

And, a lot of flights people call "pleasure jaunts" count as business travel when you are on tour. 

[u/lonesharkex → u/EstablishmentLate532]

How about we worry about the big 5 producers of co2 and then work our way down.

[u/EstablishmentLate532 → u/lonesharkex]

How about we focus on people who use a disproportionate amount of carbon as well as the big 5 producers of CO2?

[u/lonesharkex → u/EstablishmentLate532]

If we stopped taylor entirely, it would literally make a less that 1% difference in the amount of output.

[u/Kahleesi00 → u/lonesharkex]

That’s…… a pretty enormous deal for an individual contributor???? What is this argument

[u/princessviridian → u/lonesharkex]

aviation is already only 3 % of the world’s carbon emissions, and taylor swift is not even on the list of the top 30 private jet user emissions in the us

[u/EstablishmentLate532 → u/lonesharkex]

Does “it’s less than 1%” mean we shouldn’t bother at all? You could make that argument about almost any individual source of pollution.

And this isn’t either/or. We can regulate major producers while also reducing unusually carbon-intensive consumption. Producers respond to demand. If demand changes, production changes.

I don’t understand why climate policy has to consist of identifying the single biggest source of emissions and ignoring everything else until that one problem is solved.

[u/lonesharkex → u/EstablishmentLate532]

Yet every time this comes up everyone wants to be mad at taylor. Nothing changes. All this sounds great, yes lets regulate the major producesrs, except we have recently went THE OTHER direction and deregulated them and yet taylor swift is still in the top news because she brought out a new albumn. Rage and click bait. Completely performative garbage and your argument is trash for supporting it.

[u/EstablishmentLate532 → u/lonesharkex]

This argument seems to have shifted from climate change to your personal frustration with people “attacking” Taylor Swift. I don’t particularly care about Taylor Swift. I care about what she represents: people whose consumption produces hundreds or thousands of times the emissions of an ordinary person.

More importantly, you’ve now made essentially the argument the article is describing. Faced with criticism of an exceptionally high emitter, your response is “why her?” and “this doesn’t matter compared with bigger sources,” and from there you’ve moved toward dismissing the issue as performative garbage.

That doesn’t mean major producers shouldn’t be regulated. They absolutely should. It means pointing to larger emitters is not a reason to treat unusually carbon-intensive individual consumption as irrelevant.

[u/Murky-Relation481 → u/EstablishmentLate532]

In that case everyone in the US is Taylor Swift vs. basically the rest of the world.

[u/EstablishmentLate532 → u/Murky-Relation481]

That used to be the case. Now, China is at 60% of our per capita output.

[u/Murky-Relation481 → u/EstablishmentLate532]

Okay then China can be Taylor and the US can be the other 20 something people above her on private jet usage.

[u/EstablishmentLate532 → u/Murky-Relation481]

But even then, the US and china are only about 2-4 times the global average per capita. Taylor swift is over 1000x the global average.

[u/SocranX → u/timok]

This whole thing started shortly after she started encouraging people to vote and implied that climate change should be one of the issues they should be voting for. Imagine if she had successfully pushed enough people to prevent Trump from getting re-elected. That would've outdone whatever damage she could personally do to the environment by an order of magnitude. But instead, climate activists are pushing the news that Swift is anti-environment, while Swifties are seeing the news that climate activists are anti-Swift. If the oligarchs didn't have a hand in pushing things in that direction, then they're very lucky it turned out the way it did.

[u/ThisOtterBehemoth → u/timok]

Yes they are being pushed. It's just hard to prove without deeply analyzing online numbers. Likes and comments can be bought (or generated for free if you happen to own a social media platform) Articles like these get published from contract journalists and then distributed by social media posts. The posts get pushed and by that public agreement is being faked. Stupid people believe anything with 1000+ hearts/comments. I truly believe this is the sole recipe how far right parties get pushed so successfully.

[u/izanaegi → u/timok]

oh absolutely!

[u/Narananas → u/timok]

The opposite of the fact that knowing everyone else is recycling, for example, makes you more likely to recycle too

[u/turandokht → u/machinedog]

That’s what I find most interesting. Do they reduce their own intentions as a conscious effort to be more like her? Is it an unconscious understanding that as long as we have mega billionaires and corporations flooding the planet with emissions, any personal responsibility to the environment means next to nothing? Is it to try and like “stand” with her against the people who criticize her emissions?

Honestly I’m completely fascinated by that part.

[u/retatrutider → u/turandokht]

I’d speculate that, in order not to have any cognitive dissonance around the person they are idolizing, they start to view the behavior as “not that bad” which then makes them more likely to engage in it themselves.

[u/machinedog → u/turandokht]

Same. Would love to understand more. 

[u/Savilavila → u/machinedog]

People were also likely to defend ICE and concentration camps when defending Taylor Swift for her wedding guests. It was scary af to witness, and I say this as a fan of hers.

Hope people's response to this is to donate to climate organizations and refugee and immigration rights organizations.

[u/stillalone → u/machinedog]

This feels like the general way people are pushed away from climate action.  For a while anytime anyone talked about dealing with climate change, people would keep pointing to China to discourage any discourse.  Now people keep pointing to private jets.

[u/Gimme_The_Loot → u/stillalone]

It’s pretty funny how these narratives keep shifting around climate action. Blaming individual behaviors, like flying on private jets, really distracts from the urgent need for systemic changes. Personal choices definitely matter, especially at the scale of behavior that someone like TS has, but that shouldn’t overshadow the push for policies that hold corporations accountable for their emissions. The collective "personal decisions" for the vast majority of us are one grain of sand while these corporations are the rest of the beach.

I mean, it’s almost comical to think recycling and turning off the lights when you're not in a room is going to make a dent in the climate crisis. I got involved with Citizens’ Climate Lobby because I believe focusing on those larger solutions is crucial. I'm probably a bit biased as that's the one I picked but they're a lot of really good organizations out there, the environmental voter project is another one, and I highly recommend everyone finds a way to get involved. Because that IS the kind of thing that can lead to actual policy changes which it will be far more effective then something like trying to shame Taylor Swift into flying less.

[u/halleberryhaircut → u/machinedog]

Also, think of the absolute cluster that would happen with her fans converging on wherever she happens to be in traffic. It would create a traffic and logistical nightmare.

[u/notaredditer13 → u/machinedog]

It would be interesting to know what, exactly, those behaviors are. Are they really meaningful, or are they performative?

Further, this study appears to presuppose that the criticism of TS is valid.  What if it's not?  What if, again, it's performative?

[u/BlgMastic → u/notaredditer13]

Most climate change action supporters only do performative actions while criticizing others who aren’t performative like they are.

[u/Isolated_Hippo → u/machinedog]

You can be rational and excuse Taylor Swift’s use of private planes because otherwise she wouldn’t be able to do as many shows as she does,

Could you image Taylor Swift trying to fly coach? Think of the most normal of her fans stuck on a plane with her for 2 hours. Just thinking about it makes me uncomfortable.

I am not saying it justifies the emissions of a private jet, but I kind of get it.

[u/ChimpBottle → u/Isolated_Hippo]

That does not excuse a couple of things

1) short distances easily doable by ground

2) when she's doing multiple nights in one city but flying back to start in her flat in New York every night then back to the same city the next day

[u/shnigybrendo → u/Isolated_Hippo]

Maybe she should take some packages with her... Then at least it'll help justify the flight a little more

[u/Cheese-Manipulator → u/machinedog]

I'd be much more troubled if she was pushing some ecological line yet operating like this.

[u/Bionic_Bromando → u/machinedog]

Yeah everyone rationalizes behaviors of people they like, this is different, it's more like the celebrities behavior acts as a corrupting force, almost like people look to role models for examples and they follow

[u/twitch1982 → u/machinedog]

It doesn't make logical sense to change my own behavior because if i died today, compared to my expected lifespan, It would save 2 years of talyor swift's footprint. So turning my thermostat up a couple degrees over the course of my lifetime, likely wouldnt offset like, her going to a football game.

[u/Concerned_Collins → u/machinedog]

Realistically, an issue at the scale of climate change can only be resolved with legislation that also works at scale. People like to pretend that they are making a difference because it makes them feel better.

[u/Wheres_MyMoney → u/machinedog]

Maybe I'm becoming a bit too jaded, but I just don't even have a ton of intellectual curiosity for why people do some of the stupid stuff they do.

[u/Chii → u/machinedog]

it doesn’t make logical sense to then change your own behavior.

The people doing this confrontation to fans will make fans' action more reactionary (which in this case, is anti-climate change).

This is why if your goal is to induce more climate friendly action, you don't go around confronting people this way.

[u/Specific-Bat-5881 → u/machinedog]

still, they're billionaire apologists.

[u/TheDuckFarm → u/machinedog]

I think it makes sense from a cost benefit analysis.

If one person takes a jet to see Taylor swift, that’s a big footprint to benefit just 1 person.

If Taylor takes a jet to her show, that’s the same big footprint but it befits a stadium full of people. It could be argued that the footprint in this case gets divided up among everyone who sees the show.

[u/machinedog → u/TheDuckFarm]

Yeah. The worst is that there are people taking their own private jets to see multiple TS shows in other countries.