Bella Hadid Offsets Air Travel Carbon Emissions OneTreePlanted.org

As one of the world’s top models, Bella Hadid can’t stop flying in airplanes. But she can use her conscience and awareness of our earth’s fragile ecosystem to advance a dialogue on ways we can help the planet. Knowing that air travel is a major polluter of our planet and a contributor to global warming, Bella Hadid announced on Instagram Monday that she will donate 600 trees as a modest contribution to offset the damage done to the environment by her flights over the past three months and expected ones through the end of the year.

Round-trip New York to London Air Travel Emits 2 Tons of Carbon Dioxide per Passenger

In a stat almost impossible to believe, a one-way trip from New York City to London emits one ton of carbon dioxide per passenger. VOX reports that Maja Rosén was so impacted by the destruction of her own air travel foot print, that she founded a group called We Stay on the Ground in 2018 to recruit people to pledge to give up flying for one year.

Swedes seem to be influenced by climate activist Greta Thunberg’s example in shunning air travel. The percentage that opted to take a train rather than fly has doubled in a year and a half, reports DW.

The option of not flying isn’t available to Bella Hadid, unless she chooses to give up modeling in an industry not particularly forgiving of self-imposed sabbaticals. Realistically, Bella doesn’t have the option of accepting assignments only in her country of residence.

Attempting to redress some of the harm inflicted on the biosphere by her air travel, Bells wrote: ““Donating 600 trees to be planted , 20 for each flight I took these past 3 months and probably will continue for the rest of the year.”

Hadid used the organization OneTreePlanted for her donations, explaining “It makes me sad how much my job effects [sic] my carbon footprint and of how brutally climate change is obviously effecting [sic] the world. Mother Nature needs some love.”

“I’ll be starting with my home in California ( 129 million trees need to be restored re: wildfires, 1.3 million acres burned) and of course the Amazon for the most recent wildfires,” she wrote. “I know it’s not much , but when I fly, I look out the window and see so many beautiful, extensive forests, so much land and trees but also so much that needs lots of help.. think about the animals too.”