Californians Angry at Likes Of Kim and Kanye For Violating Water Restrictions
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In California, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s lush lawns stand out from the rest of the Beverly Hills’ crowd, and this during a time of water regulation designed to preserve a natural resource that is essential to life.
As California enters its fourth year of drought, with fines that the Los Angeles Times reports could range up to $10,000 for water wasting. Citizens are taking to social media to not only rat on their neighbors but call out the state’s wealthiest, some of whose magnificently manicured lawns are still green while everyone else looks at various shades of brown.
Targets include those Beverly Hills residents, who keep filling their pools, and watering their lawns, as well as megacorps like Walmart, which gets its bottled water from the state and profits from it, not to mention hotels accused of “water misting” their guests, reports the Guardian.
Whether #droughtshaming will actually effect change remains to be seen, but when the city of Montecito made its water usage data public, exposing people like Oprah Winfrey for wasting, overall water usage dropped 48%, reports Gizmodo.
When the hashtag first took off last summer, eco-minded vigilantes took to the streets, helping municipalities issue fines and even posting pictures and videos with people’s street addresses.
“The class differences are very real,” an environmental historian tells the Guardian. “The correlation with wealthier people here is very simple: They have bigger yards.”
Tree ring analyses suggest this drought is the worst in California in 1,200 years.
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If big ag and the farmers and bottled water places gave up just 1-2% of their usage it’s just like residents dropping their usage 50% or more. Big ag, farmers, and the Nestles and Walmarts are the real culprits. All that faddy almond milk and eat your almonds is causing big ag to go all in on planting way more almond trees than the water can keep up with. It take a lot of water just to get one almond to market and the big businesses do not care because greed. Residential use is like NPR and Sesame street getting budget monies, does not amount to very much in the grand scheme of things. Drought shaming residents is taking away the attention from the real abusers of the water usage. I’ve done my part by letting both front and back lawns die and having a new drought tolerant landscape put in like some of my neighbors have.
I saw some pictures of that synthetic grass. It’s not an exact match, but close, maybe with a tinge of blue. Good for you Jess and I suspect millions of people all over the Pacific Coast and the SouthWest are going to be forced to do that in the years to come.
There are some who have even taken to doing a green spray paint over the grass to keep it green and not using any water. Like I said they need to get big ag and the shifty twins of Walmart and Nestle doing their part too otherwise it’s useless. cost us a small fortune to dig everything up and replace it with native plants but worth it in the long run. One thing I will not be giving up is the pool, I have to have that for getting my tan on.
It would be the same just about anywhere else there the one percenters. We have live by one set of rules and they can live by another set of rules. Money talks and bullshit walks, as they say.