Featured Image Credit: UNICEF
Topics: Environment, Global Warming, Jeff Bezos, Katy Perry, Space, Blue Origin
Joe Harker
Topics: Environment, Global Warming, Jeff Bezos, Katy Perry, Space, Blue Origin
Katy Perry has been called out as a 'hypocrite' for going to space for a few minutes after being an outspoken advocate for climate change.
The singer and five other women piled into Jeff Bezos's spaceship, where they were launched more than 100km off the ground, putting them into outer space for a few minutes before their capsule came back down to the ground.
The whole thing only lasted about 11 minutes from launch to landing, with Perry holding a daisy aloft as she exited the capsule and then kissing the ground.
She said the flower was a tribute to her daughter, and also for 'mother Earth', though some have a bone to pick with that since she had just been in a spaceship.
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Perry has previously spoken up about the dangers of climate change, including in a video for UNICEF which resurfaced after the rocket launch. Some claimed it showed hypocrisy on the singer's part to talk about the threats to our planet and then go blasting off to space.
"Another hypocrite who bangs on about climate change, but doesn't really give a f**k when it actually comes down to it," was one person's reaction.
Another said they 'can’t help but think about how wasteful and bad for the environment this Blue Origin s**t was', while a third said: "Katy Perry talks about climate change and yet she’s on a rocket causing pollution. What a hypocrite."
The singer and the others in the capsule were criticised for doing in 11 minutes 'more damage to the earth in a few hours than the average person does in their life'.
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There were some people who defended her, saying it was 'hypocritical' of the people criticising Perry as they wondered whether the people calling her out would have turned down the chance to go to space if they had it.
Blue Origin have insisted that their rockets have 'no carbon emissions', since they use liquid oxygen and hydrogen as fuel which produces water vapour instead.
However, the BBC's science correspondent Victoria Gill explained it was 'not true' and 'not possible' that the New Shepard launch only produced water vapour.
She recounted that a scientist had informed her 'anything that combusts at a high temperature converts nitrogen that's already in the atmosphere into harmful nitrogen oxide gases that can damage the ozone layer'.
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So even if the fuel isn't producing carbon emissions, that rocket is leaving behind a trail of harmful gases that do damage our environment.
Gill added that water vapour is a greenhouse gas and it doesn't belong in the upper atmosphere, and the lack of rain to wash it back down meant it stayed up there a lot longer.
More water vapour in the atmosphere boosts the global warming caused by other greenhouse gases, and even if Blue Origin claims there were 'no carbon emissions' from their rocket it will still have had a negative impact on the planet's climate.