It’s Come To This: Eco-Shaming Celebrities

Hey, here’s some hot gossip about a famous celebrity scandal. But if you thought this was going to be about her getting caught with illicit substances or the dish on who she’s landed between the sheets, think again! No, it’s just that Celene Dion’s house guzzles six-and-a-half-million gallons of water per year! Yes, we thought we heard some monocles popping out there.

But it makes ecological sense to call attention to matters like this. While the rest of us common plebes get nagged every time we hose down the driveway for wasting water, top-billed celebrities get to spray gallons over their lush gardens, flush tons through the pipes for their homemade waterfalls and fountains, and gurgle swimming pools full of water that just sits there unused. Water conservation applies to millionaire celebrities, too!

As this Stanford graduate study suggests, publicly shaming individuals and institutions who are wasteful with natural resources might be a pretty effective method to control it. Maybe Celine Dion isn’t really going to care about this, though. She might not even read landscaping blogs, right?