Skip to main content

Get rid of your lawn

The City of Winnipeg is offering a workshop by a Living Prairie Museum expert on putting native plants in your yard. I took that as my inspiration to finally write to Great West Life (now Canada Life Co) about all the grass on their property. 

It’s only a Facebook comment, so it likely won’t go anywhere, but a letter or email would be totally ignored, whereas this comment is available to the whole wide world and might just inspire a few random “likes” to show I’m not the only human who thinks this. 

We all have a responsibility to do what we can  to mitigate the coming climate change crisis. 

As an insurance company, Canada Life Co., you are aware of how this will affect your bottom line as people suffer more ailments due to heat waves and polluted air due to increased forest fires. 

The vast swaths of grass around your buildings in Winnipeg, particularly the north lawn along Broadway which no one ever walks on, offer Canada Life Co the opportunity to be a responsible citizen and a climate leader by replacing all that biodiversity squelching monoculture with native grasses and flowers. These will require much less water (or none at all), will contribute to the flourishing of much needed pollinators and will even fix carbon in the soil. 

Spring planting season nears; there is no time to lose to consult with native plant experts to redesign and replant your lawns. 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

entering the blog world

I've finally given in to the lure of blogging. Actually, if it weren't for Cameroon, I probably wouldn't be doing this; my excuse for succumbing to the pull of popular culture is that a blog is a very pragmatic way to keep in touch with people at home while I'm gone. Thus the title -- the focus is on my journey to and experience in Cameroon. So you likely shan't see much here till things heat up a bit more.

It's a girl!

I awoke this morning to the sound of my phone ringing. It wasn't the first time the bells and whistles had attempted to pull me from my slumber so I knew it meant one of two things: either I'd overslept and my boss was calling to find out where I was, or the much anticipated baby had announced her intention to make an entrance. Felicitously, it was the latter. After a lightning fast labour lasting a mere 2 hours, Mai-Anh Esther made her entry into the world at 8:35 am (the preferred interval for Braun babies. Jon, Rebecca, and I were all born between 8 and 8:30 in the morning while Lien was born around 8 in the evening.) She is a hearty 9 lbs 2 oz and 20 1/2 inches long. "She's already got more hair than Lien does!" was the first comment made by both Jon and me. She's a perfectly contented, sleepy little girl who's hardly opened her eyes once, even to let mommy see them, and she had no objection to being passed from person to person all evening, nor to Li...

A quick no loopholes letter

Slightly adapted from CJPME: I truly believe that leadership requires the courage to close policy gaps that facilitate reckless violence. The Arms Trade Treaty was meant to prevent the very violations we are seeing today. Whether it is the US-armed genocide in Gaza, the kidnapping of a head of state in Venezuela, or the attempted coup in Iran, the US and Israel are destabilizing the world. What will be harmed by slowing down? Obscene profits do not need protection. Just slow down. In fact, why should we even be selling weapons to anyone else? so they can toss them back at us? Caution and rule following is the least we can do! Preferably not make any weapons at all.  Please at very least support Jenny Kwan’s Bill C-233 to end the special treatment given to the completely out of control and lawless United States of Avarice, and ensure that human rights are the primary factor in every arms export decision. Sign your own letter There's a whole campaign because the second half of s...