Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, an outspoken proponent of climate change activism, owns a personal jet which burned greater than $158,000 value of jet fuel in lower than two months.
Zuckerberg’s jet, a Gulfstream G650, has burned at the very least $158,448 value of jet fuel across 28 different trips between Aug. 20 and Oct. 15, in accordance with data from flight tracking software ADS-B Exchange compiled by programmer Jack Sweeney. The jet has crisscrossed across the continental United States, traveling to Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Latest York, Texas and a number of other other states often before returning to its apparent base in San Jose, Calif.
In that point span, Zuckerberg’s private jet emitted greater than 253 metric tons of carbon, a greenhouse gas that experts say is contributing to global warming and climate change. By comparison, the common American has a complete carbon footprint of 16 tons a yr while the common person worldwide burns about 4 tons a yr, in accordance with The Nature Conservancy.
The Gulfstream recorded several long-distance cross-country treks over the past two months, but in addition made multiple short trips, the information showed. For instance, the jet traveled just 18 miles between two Arizona airstrips on Oct. 15 and 28 miles from Carlsbad, Calif., to San Diego on Aug. 28.
But despite his jet’s large carbon footprint, which is 15 times larger than the common US citizen’s carbon footprint, Zuckerberg has often given money to climate change causes and has spoken out on the importance of solving global warming for future generations. Facebook has also sought to combat climate misinformation on its platform.
“It’s time for our generation-defining public works,” Zuckerberg said during a Harvard University commencement address in 2017. “How about stopping climate change before we destroy the planet and getting hundreds of thousands of individuals involved manufacturing and installing solar panels?”
“We get that our best challenges need global responses too — no country can fight climate change alone or prevent pandemics,” he continued. “Progress now requires coming together not only as cities or nations, but in addition as a worldwide community.”
In 2021, Zuckerberg said a part of the rationale he was committed to advancing virtual reality technology was because it could be “higher for society and the planet” than traveling on “cars and planes and all that” in an interview with technology publication The Information.
Months later, Facebook announced it could launch the Climate Science Information Center and shell out $1 million to organizations working to combat climate misinformation.
“Climate change is one of the crucial urgent issues impacting our world today, and Meta is committed to helping tackle this global challenge,” Facebook parent company Meta said within the Sept. 16, 2021, announcement.
And the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a personal foundation founded by Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan in 2015, has contributed tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars to climate initiative. In February, the organization said it could give $44 million to the research and development of technologies that remove carbon emissions from the air.
A representative for Zuckerberg didn’t reply to a request for comment.
Zuckerberg is the newest high-profile climate activist celebrity whose private jet usage has raised eyebrows. Leonardo DiCaprio, Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg have each often traveled on private jets while expressing concern about human-caused global warming.
Spielberg’s Gulfstream G650 burned $116,000 value of jet fuel between June and August.
“I’m frightened of [global warming],” Spielberg remarked in 2018. “Global warming is a scientific reality. It’s not a political trick. It’s a real piece of real, measurable, quantifiable science.”
“You understand while you’re not mindful of something that might pose a danger to your kids and grandchildren?” he continued. “Then you definately just go blithely through life with aerosol cans and doing all kinds of things which are depleting the ozone.”