Glass Mansions

On its final approach to the Win­nipeg Air­port, Safeway’s com­pa­ny jet glid­ed through the air smooth­ly, as always. I sat in a plush leather buck­et-seat fac­ing for­ward. The CEO sat across the aisle to my left. A Senior Vice Pres­i­dent sat direct­ly behind the cock­pit, fac­ing us. The cock­pit door was open with a cur­tain drawn across it. We couldn’t see the pilot and co-pilot, but we heard the drone of their con­ver­sa­tion with air traf­fic control.

The three of us from Safe­way were chat­ting ami­ably when some­thing hit us mid-air. There was a loud thud; the plane shud­dered; and the pilot screamed.

I flinched and clenched the arms of my chair. The exec­u­tive fac­ing me looked like she’d been punched in the gut, and the CEO let out a muf­fled cry. The plane dipped for­ward. The engines sput­tered, skipped a few beats, then caught hold again, and the jet lev­eled off, resum­ing its grad­ual descent. The entire inci­dent con­sumed only a few sec­onds, just long enough for my life to pass before me. 

“Every­thing all right?” the CEO said to the cock­pit, his voice shaking.

“We’re good,” the co-pilot said.

“Valerie?” the CEO said.

“Sor­ry for the out­burst.” Her voice was calm, reas­sur­ing. “We hit a goose. Bloody mess on Greg’s wind­shield, but we’re fine. We’ll touch down safe­ly in a few moments.”

The CEO didn’t look con­vinced. I wasn’t either, but the pilot was true to her word. In less than a minute, we were coast­ing to the terminal. 

Stand­ing on the tar­mac, I looked up at the face of the jet. A bas­ket­ball-sized gash dent­ed the nosecone. Blood, entrails, and feath­ers cov­ered the co-pilot’s wind­shield. Win­nipeg is the cap­i­tal of Man­i­to­ba, the Cana­di­an province known as the land of a hun­dred thou­sand lakes. Thou­sands of geese flock to the lakes in the sum­mer and pose a flight risk to air­craft on approach to the air­port. The pilot said we were lucky. On one of her flights, a goose blew out the wind­shield and splat­tered innards all over the cockpit.

Prac­tic­ing law and serv­ing as a Safe­way exec­u­tive, I was a pas­sen­ger on scores of pri­vate jet flights. Oth­er than the goose col­li­sion, they were all seri­ous mood-enhancers. No crowds to fight. No lines. A car dri­ves you right up to the plane. It takes off when you’re ready. The cab­ins are spa­cious, lux­u­ri­ous, and com­fort­able. A stew­ard serves Caber­net Sauvi­gnon in crys­tal glass­ware and gourmet meals on fine china.

I’ve also flown more than three hun­dred com­mer­cial flights. When I worked at Safe­way, I flew on South­west Air­lines cat­tle cars so often South­west named me Bur­bank Air­port pas­sen­ger of the year three years in a row. All South­west seats are coach class with pas­sen­gers packed in like sar­dines. No reserved seat­ing; first come, first served. More often than not, I was trapped in a mid­dle seat, includ­ing an unfor­get­table adven­ture sit­ting between a three hun­dred pound guy spilling over my arm­rest and a young moth­er with a scream­ing baby in her lap. No gourmet meals on South­west. I was lucky to get a Diet Coke in a plas­tic cup, and if the flight atten­dant liked me, two bags of fif­teen peanuts each instead of the stan­dard one bag per pas­sen­ger. Giv­en a choice, any sane per­son would choose to fly on a pri­vate jet rather than a South­west 737 or any oth­er com­mer­cial plane.

Unless that per­son is con­cerned about CO2 emis­sions. Pri­vate jets are big-time pol­luters on a pas­sen­ger per capi­ta basis. Because of the low pas­sen­ger load, a pri­vate jet pas­sen­ger gen­er­ates some­where between twen­ty and forty times the car­bon emis­sions of a com­mer­cial passenger.

Based on that data, you would expect envi­ron­men­tal­ists to scream to high heav­en for the abo­li­tion of pri­vate jet trav­el. There are some loud voic­es com­ing from less­er-known advo­cates, but most high-pro­file cli­mate change reform­ers are wealthy pri­vate jet fre­quent-fliers. Liv­ing in glass man­sions, they don’t throw stones.

Pres­i­dent Biden’s cli­mate czar, John Ker­ry, recent­ly flew to Ice­land on a pri­vate jet to accept an award for his work on cli­mate change. The irony of his trans­porta­tion mode was lost on him. “(I)t’s the only choice for some­body like me who is trav­el­ing the world to win this bat­tle,” he said. “I believe, the time it takes me to get some­where, I can’t sail across the ocean. I have to fly, meet with peo­ple, and get things done.” His expla­na­tion telling­ly ignores com­mer­cial flights, as though that option doesn’t exist for “some­body like me.”

The Unit­ed Nations recent­ly reap­point­ed Michael Bloomberg as its cli­mate envoy. Bloomberg will ful­fill his duties by trav­el­ing the world on his fleet of pri­vate jets. He does not see this as incon­sis­tent with cli­mate change reform. As a Bloomberg pub­li­ca­tion explains, “For many peo­ple, pri­vate jets seem like an extrav­a­gance. But for busy exec­u­tives and celebri­ties, the time sav­ings, con­ve­nience, and extra secu­ri­ty they offer make them more of a neces­si­ty.” From 2016 to 2020, Bloomberg flew more than 1,700 such nec­es­sary flights, emit­ting more than 10,000 tons of carbon. 

Bill Gates funds many wor­thy clean ener­gy projects. He owns four jets, which he refers to as his “guilty plea­sure.” In 2017, they spewed more than 1600 tons of car­bon into the atmosphere.

In 2019, the world’s A‑list of cli­mate change lumi­nar­ies flew 114 pri­vate jets to Italy to attend a sum­mit on glob­al warm­ing orga­nized by Google.  Google exec­u­tives own ten pri­vate jets, two Boe­ing air­lin­ers, and a fight­er jet.

Some wealthy cli­mate change advo­cates claim they off­set pri­vate jet emis­sions by pur­chas­ing car­bon cred­its. A Bloomberg arti­cle sug­gests con­ve­nient ways to do this. “You can off­set a ton of CO2 by donat­ing $18 to a refor­esta­tion effort in East Tim­or or by giv­ing $15 to a pro­gram that pro­vides fuel-effi­cient stoves for women in North Darfur.” 

The account­ing looks fishy, but even if it’s cor­rect, you’d need to stack stoves ten high in every needy North Dar­fur kitchen to off­set Bloomberg’s emis­sions alone. Besides, you would expect com­mit­ted envi­ron­men­tal­ists to advo­cate accom­plish­ing both goals simul­ta­ne­ous­ly – fund­ing the reduc­tion of car­bon emis­sions in poor nations while also great­ly reduc­ing air trav­el pol­lu­tion by fly­ing com­mer­cial. And yet, in research­ing this post, I found no wealthy envi­ron­men­tal­ist who set such an example.

This is not because fly­ing pri­vate is a neces­si­ty for busy exec­u­tives and celebri­ties, as Ker­ry and Bloomberg sug­gest. At Safe­way, exec­u­tives flew com­mer­cial before the com­pa­ny pur­chased the Gulf­stream. It took more time; some­times we had to bring along secu­ri­ty per­son­nel; and it was dif­fi­cult to match our trav­el demands with com­mer­cial flight sched­ules. But we man­aged to work around the dis­ad­van­tages and still achieve our goals. 

Fly­ing pri­vate is a will­ful choice based on con­ve­nience and com­fort. Busy exec­u­tives, celebri­ties, and wealthy envi­ron­men­tal­ists don’t want to fight their way through crowd­ed air­ports, suf­fer indef­i­nite­ly delayed take-offs, sit on planes with three hun­dred pound guys and scream­ing babies, miss con­nect­ing flights, and lose their luggage. 

As some­one who has flown too many miles on com­mer­cial flights, I get that. What I don’t get is the wealthy envi­ron­men­tal­ists’ pre­sump­tion that they can lead the charge against glob­al warm­ing from a pri­vate jet’s plush leather seat while sip­ping Caber­net Sauvi­gnon. Appar­ent­ly, they think they can per­suade the mass­es to make painful lifestyle changes while refus­ing to forego a lux­u­ri­ous “guilty plea­sure” that pro­duces car­bon foot­prints thou­sands of times greater than that of the aver­age person.

I don’t think so.

“Lead by exam­ple” is a time-worn max­im for a rea­son. If they want to change the world, park the jets.

Post Script: As South­west Air­lines Bur­bank Air­port Pas­sen­ger of the Year, my major award was a free South­west flight to Chica­go to an open-bar par­ty. I couldn’t face yet anoth­er com­mer­cial flight even for free booze. I declined all three years.