One species of plant goes extinct each day. Though this vault in Norway, 600 miles from the north pole, is only for agriculutral seed, it is meant to maintain international plant diversity (which seems opposite to the way things work here in the corn belt where monoculture rules). The vault will maintain a temp below freezing even in worst case global warming forecasts, withstand natural disasters, and survive a nuclear strike. Seed viability is estimated at 200-1,000 years (the latter if internal a/c stays on and keeps it below 0). Check it out.
Wouldn't you go here for a romantic walk? (couple in image above)
For a viewpoint against the vault, go here:
Now this is a project that makes some sense!
ReplyDeleteYes, it sure does, doesn't it???
ReplyDeleteAfter watching a programme about this, I thought it was a great idea ... it was pretty high-tech looking. It's incredible that this hasn't been done before ...
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSorry about the deleted comment. I meant to say that there is an interesting post on the Bifurcated Carrots blog that presents an opposing point of view. It raises issues that I hadn't thought of before and makes me see the seed vault in an entirely different light.
ReplyDeleteThanks Kate! I'm headed over right now to check out that other pov.
ReplyDeleteI thought I commented on this--but just wanted to come back and say..I watched a 60 Minutes special on this tonight and it really changed my mind. I thought it was a crazy idea until they interviewed the brain child behind it. He commented that we have lost over 7,000 varieties of apple seeds alone. It was a great show and I remembered first reading about it here.
ReplyDeleteAnna--Yeah, I heard that was on tv, but heard too late. I would've like to have seen it! Glad I got you thinking positively--it has its faults, but it has positives too.
ReplyDelete