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“Hypocrite” Lewis Hamilton Is Still Flying His Vegan Dog Private

The world needs role models and, for better and for worse, Lewis Hamilton is willing to step up to the plate. Whether he tackles issues like racism in sports, police brutality or the need to take action today to still have a planet to live on tomorrow, Hamilton is just as adamant about what needs to be done.
Lewis Hamilton's dog Roscoe still flies private, but you'd better do something about your carbon footprint 1 photo
Photo: Instagram / RoscoeLovesCoco
But is Hamilton a hypocrite as regards his environmentalist stance? The answer depends on who you ask.

Hamilton has come under heavy fire because of this before, and it was, back then, on account of the fact that he still owned and flew a private jet, and still had a garage packed with gas-guzzling cars.

That changed: committed to living a greener life, he sold off the private jet and most of his fleet. With the latter, it helped that he’s under contract with Mercedes, so he got to replace the ICE cars with electric luxury cars, some of them not even released to the public yet.

As it turns out, Hamilton might not own a private jet, but he still flies by one when he has to. Perhaps even worse, as far as his critics are concerned, is that he’s still flying his dog Roscoe on one.

His vegan dog, who get to travel more than a regular person, who eats only fruits and vegetables most likely prepared by a chef, and who has more followers on social media than aspiring influencers, the same critics point out. The vegan bulldog who lives a life better than the average Joe and Jane.

This is no shade to Roscoe. Celebrities work for their money and no one has worked harder in F1 than Hamilton. What he chooses to do with his money is entirely his own business so, if he wants Roscoe to have only gilded butterflies for breakfast, served chilled on a silver platter in a different Swiss chalet every morning, then so be it. It’s not that that’s the problem – though some do take issue with a dog being put on a vegetarian diet, when dogs are famously carnivore.

It’s statements like the one below that are problematic, at least for these critics: Hamilton urging others to go vegan, to lower their carbon footprint, to come together to make sure our planet is “still here long after us.” A fine sentiment, to be sure, but also apparently disingenuous.

The latest Emissions Gap Report 2020, put together after the flight ban of 2020, showed the sharp divide between the rich and the rest of the world: with the world’s population grounded because of the health crisis, the amount carbon emissions was still considerable. That’s because the rich wouldn’t stop traveling on board their private jets, even as international borders were closed off to everyone else.

The conclusion then was a very simple one: in order to reduce our collective carbon footprint from flying, the millionaires of the world needed to stop flying private. This also applies to millionaires’ favorite pets, it goes without saying.

Granted, having a high-profile figure go out and urge common sense is always better than nothing. That is to say, if only a handful of people will take Hamilton’s words to heart and make a change, it’s still better than no one doing anything differently.

But the harsh disconnect between his words and his actions will, most likely, put more off his activism, and we all end up losing. Except for Roscoe, he’s still living the good life.



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About the author: Elena Gorgan
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Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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