Posted on 05/19/2017 5:03:03 PM PDT by blam
If everything goes wrong — if because of disaster, climate change, or nuclear war, life as we know it comes to an end, with parts of the earth rendered inhospitable with widespread environmental devastation — the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a resource that could come to our rescue.
Hidden about 400 feet inside a mountain on a remote island between mainland Norway and the North Pole, the vault stores valuable seeds from crops all over the world. It's supposed to be protected and stay at a safe temperature to store all those seeds.
But extreme temperatures in the Arctic this winter — combined with heavy rain instead of snow — led to melting permafrost that gushed into the tunnel leading into the vault, according to a report in The Guardian, raising questions about whether the doomsday vault will survive a warming planet.
"It was not in our plans to think that the permafrost would not be there and that it would experience extreme weather like that," Hege Njaa Aschim, an official in the Norweigan government, which controls the vault, told The Guardian. "A lot of water went into the start of the tunnel and then it froze to ice, so it was like a glacier when you went in."
The water didn't travel all the way down into the vault, which is still safe, and officials could chip all the ice out the entryway.
Here's what the vault looks like inside — and why administrators are worried about the potentially devastating effects of climate change.
(snip)
(Lots of pictures at the site)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
LOL, Cheese whiz!
True.
It made me giggle to watch someone eat a ruby red grapefruit while lecturing on how bad GMO is for you.
Obviously a stupid place to put the Global Seed Vault.
With all that water the seeds will germinate and it will be a jungle in there....
Yep, real smart, not! The building is restricted from the public, on an isolated island near the North Pole in freezing sub-zero temperatures. But they made sure to build it pretty with fancy artwork! Norway is nuts, full of lefty nuts.
Sounds like somebody forgot the old adage about not putting all of one’s eggs in one basket. For something this critical, why not have at least four vault sites in various locations / geologies?
Conflating hybridization with foreign gene splicing is a favorite technique of GMO advocates.
Look it up.
I was thinking the same thing. Many years ago the gubmint wanted to irradiate all the food supply. It would kill all the e coli, salmonella, fungus, ect and make food last a long time. The eco nuts threw a fit, They can't seem to figure out what is good and what is bad. Eggs are good, then they are bad, then good again. Saccharin=bad, now it's back. Silicone causes cancer, now they are putting it back in boobs. In the 70's we are gonna freeze, today we're gonna burn. Peak oil is here, today, not so much. If we lose our food supply, Democrat rib eye steak will have to do.
Sure.
You bombard the seeds with radiation and it will mutate.
Ma Nature has a defrost cycle.
Who knew??
Here's how the discovery of some mutated 'giant' peas changed a company's name. Ho, ho, ho.
Call Two Men and a Truck.
There are about 1700 seed vaults. Each one can make a contribution to the SVALBARD vault. It’s like a safe deposit box - for each of the various others to store their seeds in case of regional problems.
One such vault was located in Aleppo-Syria. I have my own seed vault. I plant heirloom seeds, and save them. Plant my own taters, and plant the leftovers etc.
The location was chosen because it was far enough above sea level that even if both ice caps melted, it would still be above sea level, but it is an abandoned mine IIRC.
However, it appears that they forgot about rain and flooding, so they are going to have to modify the entrance. The water didn’t get far enough to go into the vault itself.
The seeds are stored in 3 ply mylar type bags and sealed, so theoretically, would be safe even if the environment was a bit damp.
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