Wealthy celebrities in California are now catching a lot of heat for
wasting huge amounts of water at their gigantic mansions of course.
And it's leading to backlash because we're still dealing with a very
serious historic drought.
But should we be mad at them or is there someone else to blame?
We'll get to that in just a moment.
But first, here are the details, comedian Kevin Hart for instance, two of
the Kardashian sisters, actor Sylvester Stallone, an NBA player, Dwyane Wade
were among some of the biggest violators of their local water restrictions in
southern California as the state experiences its third year in a drought.
So, look, if you have a massive property with landscaping of
course it's going to cost a lot of money to maintain it.
It's gonna cost or
it's gonna lead to a lot of water usage to keep that landscaping intact.
And I think that's what's going on here.
The celebrities were among the more than 2000 customers who recently were
issued notices of exceedance by the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District,
indicating that they had surpassed 150% of their monthly water budgets.
At least four times since the agency declared a drought emergency at
the end of last year.
So, I think it's important to understand what the drought emergency entails,
what the restrictions are, they're pretty terrible, I gotta be honest.
Because if you're an ordinary person who might have a nice garden and
that's where you get your pleasure in life, your garden is probably dead now.
And I know that after spending a ton of money on rose bushes for
my mother's garden, they're now all gone.
So Los Virgene is on June 1st, I don't live in large Virgenes by the way, but
this impacts a lot of people in Los Angeles County.
Los Virgene is on June 1st imposed severe stage three restrictions in
an effort to achieve an unprecedented 50% reduction
in consumption due to a water shortage emergency.
The rules limit outdoor watering to one day per week with only eight
minutes per station on the designated day.
So, Lost Virgenes has served some of the fanciest and richest people,
it's a wealthy area.
And among the addresses that received notices was an $18 million
hidden hills property listed under the name of former NBA Star,
Dwyane Wade, that exceeded its allocated water budget in June by
more than 1400% or 90,000 gallons.
That was actually an improvement over May when the property exceeded
Its budget by 489,000 gallons more than any other customer.
They claim that they had an issue with their pool,
which is why their water consumption was so high, but they're getting it fixed and
they're also implementing other safeguards to prevent excessive water use.
And we have other examples, but John, I wanted to give you a chance to jump in
as someone who cares deeply and talks regularly about climate change and
the impact that it has on droughts and things like that.
>> Well, I have to say that I'm disappointed because a couple of years ago
when celebrities were singing, imagine, I began to think that they were in it with
us, that they wanna be a part of the solution.
But it turns out, no, we're peasants and their imperial manners need
to be green and luscious as we're losing our damn rose bushes, okay.
Your mom can't have rose bushes because I guess Kevin Hart
needed an extra 2000 gallons, I don't know.
Look, if they can get away with it because the law isn't particularly stringent and
the fines aren't severe, then they're going to continue to do it.
And because they're rich, if the fines aren't proportional to your income, then
you're just gonna pay the fine, it's the cost of doing gardening business I guess,
or filling your pool or your many hot tubs or God knows what else they do with water.
But this is serious,
this is an area where I think public shaming potentially could help.
Not specifically because a few celebrities using too much water is the core issue
with water use in California, that's definitely not the case.
But if it gets people to start thinking about water use and how severe it is,
I think that's important.
I think this is something that we need to be talking about more often,
whether it's focusing on some celebrities or
there was a great episode of John Oliver's show a month ago about the Colorado River.
We need to start to get ready in the popular consciousness for
this issue because it's only gonna get worse from here on out.
And while those, what restrictions right now might seem severe,
imagine in 10 years or in 20 years if we don't take this seriously.
We live in LA, this is not an area that is by nature supposed to have millions and
millions of people living in it.
We have by force temporarily made that possible, but it's only gonna sustain for
so long unless we find ways to be way more careful with energy use,
with water use and all of that.
>> So let's talk about what the penalties are because I agree with you in that,
it's not high enough for incredibly wealthy people for
it to really make a difference, for them.
I think it would make a huge difference for ordinary people,
especially in Los Angeles where the cost of living is astronomical.
But the penalties include an additional charge of up to $10 per water
unit based on how many times customers exceed their water budgets.
Those who receive a third or subsequent penalty will have to install,
and this is like my worst nightmare, a flow restriction device, okay.
The reason why I say it's my worst nightmare is because.
>> No.
>> Can we just acknowledge that, yeah, okay, these are rich people so
I know that no one's crying a river for them, I totally get that.
>> They can afford.
>> But residents in California meaning just normal people,
including celebrities, I'm including them in this group of normal people,
non-business water use, let's just put it that way, accounts for
10% of the water use in the state, 10%, a total of 10%.
I just want you to really take that in, okay.
And when the state government tells you or
the local government tells you as an individual that they're
gonna restrict the flow of water to you if you use a little too much.
It's a little infuriating when you look at the agriculture industry in California and
find out that they account for 40% of the water usage.
And so you have companies like Nestle selling water from
California to other states, bottled water, okay.
You have almond farmers who farm almonds here in California that
takes up a lot of water and they actually export
a lot of that product to Asian countries in particular China.
And so it's a big business, and so water use when it comes to that,
why is that not the primary focus.
So, yes, I think that there could be a lot of water waste when it comes to these
massive estates that these celebrities own.
But my concern as is always the case with climate action is this overwhelming
focus on individuals as opposed to industries that are contributing to waste,
contributing to climate change, contributing to the drought,
those are the issues that I have.
>> Yeah, I think that's fair.
And look, this is hardly the first time that we've talked specifically about
Nestles abuse of water here in California, you're totally right.
I think that it's important for
people to be a part of the solution because I believe that's important.
It has an outsized effect beyond the actual contribution.
I think it can lead to people prioritizing these issues when
making political decisions, including which candidates to support and all that.
But I definitely agree that it's also used by the other side, the corporations
as a dodge to get people to believe falsely that it is primarily on them.
At the same time I would not worry about the celebrities.
I do not believe anyone is putting a flow limiter on Sylvester Stallone's pipes.
I don't think he's ever gonna go to fill his pool and it's gonna take six months or
anything.
Yeah, its the weird thing you can find whatever.
>> No, I'm worried, I'm not worried about the celebrities.
I'm worried about them doing it to us like normal.
>> Yeah, no, I think that that's totally fair and look, the longer we wait in doing
the far more numerically significant regulations of corporations, the more
likely it is that there's gonna be more stringent regulations on regular people.
>> Yep, one final thing I wanted to show you because this graphic really did
blow my mind.
It shows you the agriculture industry and
what uses up the most water and
the top water user Alfalfa crops, Alfalfa crops.
So in California, the country's largest producer of Alfalfa,
roughly 70% of the state's crop gets used by dairy cows.
So beef cattle also consume increasing amounts of Alfalfa to increase their fat
content right before slaughter.
>> Yeah, I blame the cows, they're greedy, honestly,
I think that they're screwing us over and they need to be stopped.
>> Those damn cows and their Alfalfa, we're all suffering the consequences.
But anyway. >> It's
a good thing they are carnivores to eat the cows because that's the only thing
that's gonna stop them from eating more Alfalfa.
>> And drink the milk, right?
Because these are dairy cows and all that, so.
>> Here is the conclusion that I have come to.
>> These are the conclusions, do with that information what you made