Noah’s Ark Of Seeds Built To Maintain World Food Supply After Doomsday
A vault carved into the Arctic permafrost and filled with samples of the world’s most important seeds will be inaugurated Tuesday, providing a Noah’s Ark of food crops in the event of a global catastrophe.
Aimed at safeguarding biodiversity in the face of climate change, wars and other natural and man-made disasters, the new seed bank has the capacity to hold up to 4.5 million batches, or twice the number of crop varieties believed to exist in the world today, according to the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT), which spearheaded the project.
With European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso looking on, Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg will inaugurate the vault by symbolically depositing a few grains of rice in one of its three spacious cold chambers.
Norway has assumed the entire six-million-euro (8.9-million-dollar) charge for building the vault in its Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, just some 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the North Pole.
There are currently more than 200,000 different varieties of rice and wheat in the world, but this diversity is rapidly disappearing due to pests and diseases, climate change and human activities.
Biodiversity is essential because it enables crops to adapt to new conditions, resist diseases, increase their nutritional value and become less dependant on water, according to GCDT.
Under tight security, duplicates of seed samples from 21 seed banks around the world will be stored in the new vault at a constant temperature of minus 18 degrees Celsius (minus 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit), and even if the freezer system fails the permafrost will ensure that temperatures never rise above minus 3.5 degrees Celsius.
Contributions from the other 1,300 seed banks worldwide are expected at a later date.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault will on Tuesday hold some 268,000 samples. They will remain the property of their countries of origin, which can claim them back if they should disappear from their natural environment.
Measuring twice the size of Belgium and counting just 2,300 inhabitants, the Svalbard archipelago, where ironically no crops grow, is considered the ideal location for the new vault due to its remote location far from civil strife.
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[[There are currently more than 200,000 different varieties of rice and wheat in the world, but this diversity is rapidly disappearing due to pests and diseases, climate change and human activities.
Biodiversity is essential because it enables crops to adapt to new conditions, resist diseases, increase their nutritional value and become less dependant on water, according to GCDT.]]
1) If these countries put half this much thought and effort into actually building, planting, and training the “poor” in the world … there just might NOT be any poor in the world.
2) I recall “genetically altered” crops that were supposed to be disease and pest resistant … but the global alarmists screamed bloody murder that those crops could NOT be planted or used for food for nations whose populations were starving to death … No, who knows what eating genetically altered food could do to a person … say 50-60 yrs. down the road … So, let’s NOT plant, grow and eat it now … no, just die starving now.
3) I might find this “effort” admirable … if the world community that is involved in it actually faced the reality of the source of the so-called “human civil strife”, and addressed it seriously. Without that, this is just, pretty much, a placebo gesture …
4) may as well shoot it out into orbit around the Earth, because after something as catastrophic as you’re anticipating it’ll be just as easy for anyone who survives to get to as where you’re sticking it … and even safer from those pesky misbehaving humans … unless, of course, the USS Lake Erie shoots the sum`bitch down …
5) but what the fuck do I know …
February 25th, 2008 at 9:29 pmActually as funny as it sounds I have been applying a hell of a lot of my brain power towards the concept of constructing a time capsule of sorts myself.
Saving seeds is not a bad idea really, but than again there is no way to be certain that any of these seeds are going to be able to grow in a future environment.
My idea for a time capsule is somewhat more basic, but I think more important. I want to come up with some way to preserve the formula for making concrete, so we do not lose it for a thousand plus years as we did after the fall of Rome.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:07 pmnice, now get to work on the arc in space for the most important species, Man.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:40 amwell I too find this idea funny, but not fool.
We know yet to determine how a given society lived through its seeds (carbon analyse, DNA analyse) in archeology.
hehe, concrete is not a bad idea,
see how a french scientist recover the pyramids concrete :
http://www.davidovits.info/78/davidovits-pyramid-theory-worldwide
February 26th, 2008 at 6:21 amBut what about the aminals?
February 26th, 2008 at 9:57 amWithout the bacteria, the worms, the bugs that makes dead things
decay back into soil, or carry pollen, the seeds won’t be that useful.
It’s a good idea, but it’s not enough.
I don’t want to sound like one of those, but we are kind of in this
together.
Except for mosquitoes - they’re useless.
But what about the aminals? … Except for mosquitoes - they’re useless.
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Two words:
Jurassic Park
February 26th, 2008 at 10:11 am