Like its predecessors, Super Bowl LX was a magnet for celebrities and the uber-rich, and a morning-after tweet shed light on one quiet but devastating side effect.
Wherever the prominent and prosperous go, private jets go too, and Super Bowls are notorious for significantly increasing non-commercial aviation.
The spike in private aviation linked with the Big Game is so well-established that it has a name: the Super Bowl Effect. On Monday, the vocal youth-led group Climate Defiance retweeted a 20-second clip by sports and business journalist Joe Pompliano of game night private jet departures via the aviation-tracking site Flightradar24.
Completely unsustainable. This is the type of behavior that will be studied in 100 years and people will be astounded that the revolution didn't come sooner https://t.co/aBIAf4EJyd
— Climate Defiance (@ClimateDefiance) February 9, 2026
"Completely unsustainable," Climate Defiance wrote. "This is the type of behavior that will be studied in 100 years and people will be astounded that the revolution didn't come sooner."
In the clip, the jets were so densely packed that it was impossible to count them; on Instagram, Boardroom (@boardroom) reported that around 1,000 private aircraft flew in for the game.
Private jet pollution spiked dramatically from 2018 to 2023, jumping 46%.
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Researchers have said that the wealthy use private jets "as taxis" and warned that the sudden, sharp uptick in private jet use is a significant contributor to rising temperatures.
In a threaded tweet, Climate Defiance cited an Oxfam stat that shows that 50 of the world's wealthiest people generate more emissions in 90 minutes than the average person in a lifetime.
The "wealthiest 1% emit more than the TOTALITY of the bottom 50% globally," the group continued, asserting the destructive excesses of the ultra-wealthy "cannot be reformed."
Several commenters agreed, though many fretted that the "100 years" Climate Defiance mentioned was overly optimistic.
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"100 years lol. We've got 3 years left, max," one glumly replied.
"Humans won't exist in 100 years, largely thanks to the people on these planes," another wrote.
One user vented about how billionaires undermine the efforts of the average person at scale.
"But we keep being told to 'do our part' with the compostable trash bags and rinsing glass jars for the recycle bin. #BurnItDown," they said.
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