'High-flying hypocrite'? Eco-warrior Steven Spielberg's private jet burned $116K worth of fuel in 2 MONTHS
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: A private jet belonging to Steven Spielberg has reportedly burned through over $116,000 worth of jet fuel since June. The director, however, has said in the past that he is "terrified of climate change". Despite his past warnings about global warming, Spielberg's plane, a Gulfstream G650, has burned at least $116,159 worth of jet fuel over the course of 16 trips spanning nearly 17,000 miles since June 23.
The information has been obtained from flight tracking data from ADS-B Exchange and compiled by the database Celebrity Jets. According to Fox News, the figures are possibly an underestimate since the database did not calculate fuel and distance metrics of at least three trips made by the director's jet.
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Spielberg had previously said that he was afraid of global warming and slammed people who "go blithely through life" without caring about how they are impacting the environment. "I'm terrified of [global warming]," Spielberg remarked during a 2018 interview for his film 'Ready Player One'. "Global warming is a scientific reality. It's not a political trick. It's a true piece of real, measurable, quantifiable science."
"People have to come around to believing that this is — we are going to have to have a kind of confrontation with destiny unless we do something about it today," Spielberg said, adding that "everybody has to be held responsible" for their role in climate change. "You know when you're not mindful of something that could pose a danger to your children and grandchildren?" he remarked. "Then you just go blithely through life with aerosol cans and doing all sorts of things that are depleting the ozone."
Spielberg's jet, among its many trips, traveled 3,589 miles from Westhampton, New York, to Amsterdam, Netherlands, on June 29, burning $21,183 worth of fuel and emitting 32 tons of carbon dioxide, according Celebrity Jets. It then traveled to Rotterdam, Netherlands, and returned to Westhampton on July 1, burning $24,685 worth of fuel and emitting 38 tons of carbon.
Among the jet's more than a dozen trips, it traveled from Westhampton to Van Nuys, California, on July 11, from Westhampton to Knock, Ireland, on July 21 and from Teterboro, New Jersey, to Van Nuys on August 4. Its most recent trip recorded was on Thursday, August 18, from Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, to Teterboro.
In just the last two months, Spielberg's jet has emitted at least 179 tons of carbon dioxide. The average American has an annual carbon footprint of 16 tons by comparison. The average global footprint, on the other hand, is four tons per person. Notably, data for a few flights have not been calculated, including the ones on Thursday from Van Nuys to Chicago and from Chicago to Martha's Vineyard.
Spielberg is not the only star to have warned the world about global warming while continuing to contribute to the pollution. In the past, starts such as Kylie Jenner, Taylor Swift and Mark Wahlberg have all been criticized for their frequent short flights on multi-million dollar jets.