How many house plants would celebrities need to offset their jet emissions? Spoiler: it’s a lot. We’ve all heard that house plants can clean the air, but is it enough to scrub the carbon footprint of a private jet? This is absolutely ridiculous and just for fun. Obviously there are much more efficient ways to reduce carbon emissions. Like, idk, not using private jets.

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So, how many house plants would celebrities need to offset their private jet emissions?

These have been rounded to the nearest billion. We used individual celebrities jet emissions, so discrepancies arise when accounting for scale. To see how we did the math, jump here.

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Taylor Swift would need 30 billion house plants to offset her CO2 emissions.

The 30 billion prayer plants needed to offset Taylor Swift’s jet usage take up approximately 46 billion square feet or 1,671 square miles. Yosemite National Park is 1,187square miles, so the area needed for the plants is bigger than Yosemite.

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Floyd Maywhether would need 26 billion house plants to offset his c02 emissions.

The 26 billion house plants needed to offset Floyd Maywhether’s jet usage take up approximately 39 billion square feet or 1,426 square miles. The Grand Canyon National Park covers about 1,904 square miles, so the area for the plants would cover most of The Grand Canyon.

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Jay-Z would also need 26 billion house plants to offset his CO2 emissions.

The 26 billion house plants needed to offset Jay-Z’s jet usage is approximately 39 billion square feet or 1,406 square miles. The island of Oahu, where Honolulu is located, spans around 597 square miles, so the space needed is more than double the size of Oahu.

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A-Rod would need 19 billion house plants to offset his CO2 emissions.

The 19 billion prayer plants needed to offset A-Rod’s jet usage takes up approximately 30 billion square feet or 1,077 square miles. The Greater London area covers about 607 square miles, making the area needed almost twice the size of Greater London.

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Blake Shelton would need 16 billion house plants to offset his CO2 emissions.

The space needed to offset 16 billion prayer plants needed to offset Blake Shelton’s jet usage takes up approximately 25 billion square feet or 905 square miles. You would need three New York Cities (302 square miles) for all the plants. 

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Steven Speilberg would need 16 billion house plants to offset his CO2 emissions.

The 16 billion prayer plants needed to offset Steven Speilberg’s jet usage is approximately 25 billion square feet or 899 square miles, which means you’d need about eight Maldives (155 square miles) to fill all those plants.

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Kim Kardashian would need 15 billion house plants to offset her CO2 emissions.

The 15 billion house plants needed to offset Kim Kardashians jet usage is approximately 23 billion square feet or 860 square miles, meaning you’d need about two Hong Kongs (427 square miles) for all the plants.

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Mark Whalberg would need 14 billion house plants to offset his CO2 emissions.

The 14 billion house plants needed to offset Mark Whalberg’s private jet usage is approximately 21 billion square feet or 760 square miles, meaning you’d need about four Lake Tahoes (760 square miles).

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Oprah Winfrey would need 13 billion house plants to offset her CO2 emissions.

The 13 billion house plants needed to offset Oprah Winfrey’s private jet usage is approximately 19 billion square feet or 703 square miles, meaning you’d need an area almost three times larger than Chicago (703 square miles).

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Travis Scott would need 11 billion house plants to offset his CO2 emissions.

The 13 billion house plants needed to offset Travis Scott’s private jet usage is approximately 17 billion square feet or 611 square miles, meaning you’d need an area over six times larger larger than Baltimore (611 square miles)

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How many plants needed total? 

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The total amount of house plants needed to offset carbon emission for the worst polluting celebrities is 186 billion plants.

The 186 billion house plants required to offset ten of the most polluting celebrity jets take up approximately 279 billion square feet or 10,007 square miles, meaning you’d need an area bigger than the state of Vermont (9,616 square miles).

That’s a lot of plants.

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Why does it matter?

Private planes emit 10 to 20 times more carbon than commercial airline passengers, according to Transport & Environment, a European clean-transport group.

According to the High Flyers 2023 study, approximately 1 percent of people are believed to be responsible for about half of all aviation carbon emissions.

In the same study, private jets are estimated to be 5 to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes and emit at least 10 times more pollutants than commercial planes per passenger.

In the same study, private jet use has increased by about a fifth and private jet emissions have increased more than 23 percent.

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Methodology

Finding CO2 Absorption in plants 

Formula 

Houseplant used: Prayer Plant

We chose Prayer Plant because the percentage in reduction of CO2 is highest with at 14.40%, according to saveonenergy.com.

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Example

Taylor Swift

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Finding Space needed…

To calculate the space needed we must find the total plant size.

Formula 

Prayer plants are measured in inches, so to find individual plant size, we first convert into square feet and then square miles. 

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Example

Plant size = 12 inches by 18 inches

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Taylor Swift

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Convert Square Feet to Square Miles

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Citation

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1. Institute for Policy Studies (2023, May 1). Report: High flyers 2023: How ultra-rich private jet travel costs the rest of us and Burns up the planet. Institute for Policy Studies. https://ips-dc.org/report-high-flyers-2023/
2. Celebrity jets (@celebjets) · Twitter. (n.d.). https://twitter.com/CelebJets
3. Private jets: Can the super-rich supercharge zero-emission aviation?. Transport & Environment. (2022, September 30). https://www.transportenvironment.org/discover/private-jets-can-the-super-rich-supercharge-zero-emission-aviation/
4. Team, Y. D. P. (2023, January 19). Just plane wrong: Celebs with the worst private jet CO2 emissions: Insights. Yard. https://weareyard.com/insights/worst-celebrity-private-jet-co2-emission-offenders
5. UK energy. SaveOnEnergy.com. (2023, February 27). https://www.saveonenergy.com/uk/houseplants-offset-co2-emissions

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