Sting is known for his environmental activism however, he has received a lot of criticism for his private jet-setting lifestyle. Recently, Jeremy Paxman on the UK program Newsnight, called Sting on his commitment to the environment even though his travels emit “enormous carbon costs.”

Sting said: “I think it’s an amusing red herring for the media to blame celebrities for the global crisis we’re in.” When Paxman interrupted saying that he wasn’t being blamed, but simply accused of hypocrisy, Sting replied, “I’ve done a lot of work to try and safeguard vast amounts of equatorial rainforests over the past 20 years. I think I’ve tried to ameliorate my carbon footprint which is admittedly large, but then again so is yours, Jeremy.”

He added, “Whenever I’m asked a sensible question that’s when I give a sensible answer, but none of us are blameless in this – none of us. It’s difficult to do my job and not have a carbon footprint, but I’ve tried to offset it. I’ve worked pretty hard over the last 20 years – demarcated an area of land the size of Belgium, which is a big success story, and this dam is going to compromise that.”