Poor Taylor: Forced to Sell the Smaller of Her Private Jets Due to Carbon Embarrassment

Ward Clark reporting for RedState 

Poor Taylor Swift.

I will admit that until recently, I had very little idea who Taylor Swift was. My tastes in music are eclectic, running from Alan Jackson to Aerosmith to Amadeus, but Taylor Swift was never really on my radar, other than the fact that my kids listened to her from time to time and that she, like many musicians, travels a lot on a private jet with the concomitant enormous carbon footprint.

I don't give two hoots about Miss Swift's carbon footprint, but a young man named Jack Sweeney, a junior at the University of Central Florida, apparently gives several hoots. He has been tracking Miss Swift's travel and estimating her carbon output, which has proved embarrassing enough to prompt poor Taylor to sell one of her private jets — the smaller one, mind you — and get along with only one.

Taylor Swift has sold one of her private jets for $40 million, according to a new report. 

The pop sensation sold her Dassault Falcon 900LX on January 30 to Missouri-based car insurance company Car Shield, according to documents obtained by Daily Mail. 

Swift reportedly purchased the jet for $40 million in 2011, but the plane is now estimated to be worth around $7million second-hand, the Daily Mail reported. She still owns the larger Dassault Falcon 7X, which is worth around $54million brand new and has been her primary mode of transportation during the international leg of her Eras Tour. 

The 34-year-old singer-songwriter has been under pressure to cut down on her carbon emissions for years, especially as she travels around the world between tour shows and appearances to support boyfriend and Kansas City Chiefs tight-end Travis Kelce at his NFL games. In 2022, Swift topped the list of the worst celebrity private jet CO2 emission offenders, according to Yard, a sustainability marketing agency that prides itself on "cutting-edge data and analysis."

Are you wondering what a Dassault Falcon 7X looks like? So was I, and I was shocked — SHOCKED — to see the conditions in which poor Taylor is compelled to travel:

You have to feel for poor Taylor, being forced to travel on only one of these luxurious private aircraft.

Now that I'm done shedding crocodile tears over Taylor's hardships, I'm going to do something I don't think I've ever done before: Give some well-deserved credit to a climate activist, that being the aforementioned Jack Sweeney. While I disagree (vehemently) with Mr. Sweeney's positions on carbon output, he deserves some credit for putting his money where his mouth is. Too many of these celebrities clutch pearls over carbon emissions and wag their fingers at those of us who drive an SUV or a Super Duty pickup while cruising to climate summits in their private jets; it's good to see a member of that climate movement calling at least one of them out on their hypocrisy.

This isn't the end of the story. While Jack Sweeney has managed to embarrass Taylor Swift into selling one (the smaller one) of her private jets, he is getting some backlash from the pop-tart's legal department. 

Swift's attorneys sent a cease-and-desist letter to Sweeney in December, blaming his automated tracking of her private jet for tipping off stalkers about her location, stating that "the timing of stalkers" suggests a connection to Sweeney’s flight-tracking sites, according to The Washington Post. Sweeney is also accused of "disregarding the personal safety of others"; "willful and repeated harassment"; and "intentional, offensive, and outrageous conduct and consistent violations of our client’s privacy."

I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on television, but this seems like pettifoggery to me. There are flight-tracking sites all over the Web. It seems that finding out Miss Swift's itinerary based on news stories of her performances and travel plans would greatly simplify identifying her expensive, luxurious, carbon-spewing private jets, especially now that she only has one (poor Taylor!). And if Taylor continues to warm the atmosphere with her own complaints about carbon emissions, she should be thick-skinned enough to take some criticism when called out on her hypocrisy.

Remember when bands traveled on buses? I remember, when I was about 20, being out on the highway somewhere and passing a row of tractor-trailers, in front of which was the Aerosmith band bus. I blasted my truck's horn as I passed the bus and was rewarded by a honk from the bus. You can't have those little bits of fan interaction in a private jet, and that's just too bad.

To Taylor Swift, I can only say this: Young lady, you have been hoist with your own petard. Deal with it.