The Daily Populous Thursday October 20th, 2022 morning edition
Authored by euronews.com and submitted by Always__curious__

The world’s second richest man has sold his private jet after being tracked by Twitter climate activists.

Bernard Arnault - the CEO of luxury goods company LVMH and co-founder of Louis Vuitton - is worth an eye-watering €140 billion.

But he’s not immune to the criticisms of the Twitterverse.

The billionaire’s company has sold its private jet after a social media account started tracing his flights and tallying his carbon emissions.

“Indeed, with all these stories, the group had a plane and we sold it," Arnault told France’s Radio Classique.

"The result now is that no one can see where I go because I rent planes when I use private planes."

Unfortunately, these rented polluting chartered jets will still guzzle fossil fuels.

How much carbon do billionaire jets emit?

For six months, two twitter accounts - @i_fly_Bernard and @laviondebernard - have been tracing the billionaire’s flights.

Together, they have amassed more than 100,000 followers.

“63 French billionaires emit as much CO2 as 50 per cent of the population,” the I Fly Bernard bio reads.

Arnault is not the only celebrity to have his flight data scrutinised on social media.

In July, pop superstar Taylor Swift came under fire for her mammoth carbon footprint.

Taylor Swift came under fire for the large number of flights logged on her plane. AFP

Swift’s plane had taken 170 flights between 1 January and 29 July 2022, emitting 8,294 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Confronted with the vast figure - more than 1000 times greater than the average person’s carbon footprint - a spokesperson for Swift insisted that the plane was regularly loaned out.

In 2021, a teenager set up a twitter account to track Elon Musk’s jet movements.

The tech billionaire offered the account admin $5,000 (€5,076)to shut it down - but the offer was refused.

Flying is terrible for the planet. One study from Lund University found that avoiding just one transatlantic flight saves eight times more greenhouse gas emissions in a year than recycling.

Private jets are particularly dangerous. Because they generally carry small numbers of passengers, they are up to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes.

In total, non commercial jets emit more than 33 million tonnes of greenhouse gases each year - more than Denmark’s total carbon footprint.

Goyteamsix on October 19th, 2022 at 14:54 UTC »

Lol that's not why they sold it. He has a Dessault Falcon 900, which is an old-ass, loud, expensive to maintain tri-jet.

entitysix on October 19th, 2022 at 13:05 UTC »

I too, suffer the consequences of my monumental greed.

Oh nevermind I'm just a poor.

SpaceButler on October 19th, 2022 at 12:54 UTC »

The guy could buy and set fire to a nice house every day of the year and it wouldn't impact his financial situation.