| Friend, By 2025, plastic bags will no longer be legally provided in California stores.(1) You’ve probably already become used to carrying reusable bags to your grocery store, and hopefully you feel good about doing something to stop climate change! After all, every time you avoid using 10 plastic bags at the grocery store, you prevent 2 kilograms of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.(2) But when Elon Musk flies his private jet from San Francisco to Los Angeles, his plane emits about 2,000 kilograms of global warming emissions.(3) You have to use your cloth bags one thousand times to make up for it! Private jets are becoming one of the top polluters in the transportation sector, and not only that, their owners pay the lowest aviation taxes -- just 22 cents on a gallon of fuel, less than you and I pay to fly commercial. They aren’t paying their fair share to keep the TSA working, the runways repaired, or the air clean.
The median net worth of a private jet owner is $190 million, and we aren’t exaggerating when we say these jets are destroying our planet. The wealthiest 1% of air travelers are causing 50% of all passenger flight carbon emissions.(4) The transportation sector has surpassed coal and energy as the worst polluter, and the climate is warming at an ever-rapid rate. These damaging planes shouldn’t be able to be used to cheaply jaunt all over the country while we pay the price. We need to stop the ultra-wealthy from freely polluting, and their private jets are a good place to start. Will you sign on to tell Congress to pass the FATCAT Act today? Thank you for joining the fight. –Irene, along with Angela, Annie, Isidra, Jen, Sheena, and Lindsay (and the rest of the Courage team)
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