'Doomsday' Seed Vault Holds World's Most Diverse Stock Of Food Crop Seed

The Daily Green:

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault officially opened Feb. 26, 2008, when it received its first shipment of 100 million seeds, originating from more than 100 different nations. In March 2010, its collection will top 500,000, and it will become the most diverse collection of food crop seeds anywhere on Earth.

Read the whole story: The Daily Green

Comments

[Ardi Ramidus]

10:28 PM on 03/10/2010

Svalbard. Isn't that where Lord Asriel was imprisoned?

[quillsinister]

06:58 AM on 03/11/2010

Maybe he's still there, and the seed bank is all his doing. :-)

[democles]

10:32 AM on 03/10/2010

Maybe the perennially light weight Clarence Thomas, Monsanto's 'man on the court,' can be frozen there. The sooner the better.

[Treehuggindirtworshiper]

09:42 AM on 03/10/2010

Way cool! (Pun intended!)

[quillsinister]

07:18 PM on 03/09/2010

This is a fantastic idea. However, they need to put a few snipers on their payroll to shoot any Monsanto representative who attempts to approach this facility. I'd suggest trapdoors or hidden poison gas nozzles in the vestibule, but I really don't think they should be allowed to get that close.

[goodspkr]

12:51 PM on 03/09/2010

ARE YOU IN A CLIMATE CULT?
(adapted from how to recognize if you are in a cult group)

Are you told not to question what is being taught because the scientists are honest and want the best for you so you must trust them?

Are you told not to ask questions why anyone left the group? Are you to accept the answers the IPCC gives you such as: they fell into denial, oil companies spent so much money putting out false information, they weren’t open or they had a bad heart and didn’t want to be saved?

Are you told that you must be with James Hansen to be saved?

If you want to leave are you being told there is no other explanation for warming? Are you told you are responsible and only with this group can you save youself and the planet?

Are you made to feel your carbon footprint is obscene and you must be willing to pay carbon taxes?
Are you being rebuked for things such as the car you drive or the size of the home you live in? Do they tell you it’s a matter of conscience the way one complies?

Are they putting down other explanations for the warming and building up a trace gas increasing by .0001 as the cause of massive hurricanes, droughts and famine? Do they sometimes use people as examples of what you are to be doing and others on what you are not to be doing?

[goodspkr]

12:50 PM on 03/09/2010

Do they bring attention to studies they do, and ignore others that may be doing the same things but with different results?

Do they put down others to make themselves look better, calling themselves scientific and others deniers?

Do they call those who leave fall away people who have been bought by the oil companies and enemies? Are they the most worthy of your anger?

Do they stop you from reading anything negative about AGW calling it climate pornography or recommend you not to read it for your own protection? And if they don’t stop you, what does?

Do they recommend for you to be around fellow true believers expecting you to be at all the Huffington Post Climate Stories? Do they want you to mark you are a fan of…...

Do they defend all that they do even though it can be harmful to the economy and the poor? Do they even for a moment wonder if they might be wrong?

If you answered yes to half of these questions you are in the AGW Climate Cult.

[pointy]

06:19 PM on 03/09/2010

OMG, I'm in an AGW Climate Cult and I didn't know it!

[pointy]

06:21 PM on 03/09/2010

Oh wait, I just re-read your posts and realize I had temporarily fallen under the spell of a delusional, paranoid simpleton.

[Treehuggindirtworshiper]

09:41 AM on 03/10/2010

LMAO!

[Aaronofobx]

12:21 PM on 03/09/2010

Monsantos insurance policy if they let something out that mutaye the biosphere. All the heirloom strains are being genetically polluted from the frankenfoods.

[Tyler-Durden]

12:08 PM on 03/09/2010

what a great idea this is.

could you imagine if all nations were forward thinking like this?

we could all be working on SUSTAINABILITY as a planet, rather than conquering and controlling each other like tribes of neanderthals.

well, if we all perish except the norwegians, then humanity actually has a chance. they probably should not have published the location of this place.

[jsgaetano]

11:06 AM on 03/09/2010

Well that's good to hear. Maybe after conservatives drive human life extinct, the next form of intelligent life can make use of it.

At least there exists somewhere a source of food which hasn't been poisoned by Monsanto.

[Mark2100]

10:39 AM on 03/09/2010

I'm surprised Monsanto hasn't taken it over yet.

[SaltyLassi]

11:10 AM on 03/09/2010

lol

[democles]

10:40 AM on 03/10/2010

I'm sure Monsanto is going to put their lawyers onto them, claiming they own all the seeds, now and forever known, in the entire universe. In perpetuity.

[fumes]

10:33 AM on 03/09/2010

just be sure to include examples of the Good Seed!

while that plant is better than cotton and wood pulp..

chiefly it is used in the amelioration of existential angst!

[quillsinister]

08:18 PM on 03/10/2010

Heh. Fanned. :-)

[Whatevah]

10:16 AM on 03/09/2010

This is a great idea. The story stresses the idea that this repository will be valuable in the event of some catastrophe.

However, the founders are mainly concerned about the continuing conversion of wildlife habitat into farms and other development. Plant and animal species are disappearing quick; this repository is hoped to provide a way to bring back forms of life that are destroyed by the bulldozer.

[HeevenSteven]

09:48 AM on 03/09/2010

Why build one, when you can have two at twice the cost?

[TazoWolf]

09:40 AM on 03/09/2010

I have to wonder how it compares to the National Seed Storage Lab at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. My grandfather was able to donate some bulbs to them that had previously been listed as extinct... he had them in his greenhouse, and they were definitely the supposedly extinct plant (confirmed at the NSSL).

[tlgeiger62]

09:12 AM on 03/09/2010

And it's located in RUSSIA? Really?

[typicalpol]

09:23 AM on 03/09/2010

That's Norway not Russia.

The issue here is it tends to be a repository more based and funded for the multinational food and seed companies rather than "the common good".

[Whatevah]

10:14 AM on 03/09/2010

Actually, the location was chosen because it is a cold, out-of-the-way place that is not likely to be converted into a shopping mall anytime soon. The plan is for this place to last for thousands of years, which won't happen in a warmer, more popular place.

[tlgeiger62]

07:14 PM on 03/09/2010

Oh...I googled just the word Svalbard and must have read it too quickly or something. Thanks for straightening me out.

[HeevenSteven]

09:31 AM on 03/09/2010

It's Norway's Island..but I guess it's whoever gets there first, eh.