Norway's 'Doomsday Vault' holds seeds of survival

[Demagitator]

Source: Independent, UK

By Tony Paterson in Berlin
Monday, 25 February 2008

The name alone makes it sound like a relict from the Cold War or something out of a Bond film: it is referred to as the "Doomsday Vault" and housed in an icy steel and concrete bunker, more than one hundred metres deep inside the mountain permafrost of an Arctic archipelago. Yet the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is man's latest attempt to create a latter-day Noah's Ark, or insurance policy, for the planet in the event of a catastrophe such as devastating climate change induced by global warming.

After decades of planning and construction work, the vault will officially start operating tomorrow. As the world's first global seed bank, it has the capacity to hold up to 4.5 million batches of seeds from all the known varieties of the planet's main food crops.

The vault cost €6m to construct and has been built to withstand nuclear missile attacks and even dramatic rises in sea levels that would result from both the Greenland and Antarctic ice shelves melting simultaneously.

The vault aims to make it possible to re-establish crops and plants should they disappear from their natural environment or be wiped out by major disasters. Cary Fowler, of the Global Crop Diversity Trust which set up the project together with Norway's Nordic Gene Bank yesterday described the vault as the "perfect place" for seed storage.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/norways-doomsday-vault-holds-seeds-of-survival-786773.html

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. But will there be lutefisk?

[ladywnch]

4. ROFLMAO...........cockroaches and lutefisk will survive EVERYTHING!!!

[Diclotican]

5. RUMMYisFROSTED

RUMMYisFROSTED

You know that Lutefisk, with side dishes is a very good dinner?.. It looks like in this case you have used to much lute when made the fish... And then you have a big gely... But if you are doing it right, the fish would be nice, and the feast are there;)... Wonderfully dish if made correct..

And we do have other snacks, like Fenalår, rakeørret, rakelaks and so on... Excellent food when made correct... Not that nice when made wrong...

Diclotican

Sorry my bad English, not my native language

[provis99]

7. lutefisk is the reason there are so few Norwegians in the world

What would you expect to happen to people that eat codfish soaked in lye? ick. At least the lefse's good.

[Diclotican]

20. provis99

provis99

hi hi, Maybe;).. No I guess it is other thing that is doing that thing.,. Well we are 4.6 million now, and we are growing, so in maybe 20-40 years time we are over 5 millions... I guess it is little more with the nature, and the fact that 50% of our country is solid rock.. You can't feed a nation in the ten of millions, where less than 6% are farmland..

Lefesen is good, but Lutefisk is pretty tasty when made right them too;).. But of course I am used to it, for someone else who have not eating it for the last 30 year or so, it can be little difficult to eat...:evilgrin:

Diclotican

Sorry my bad English not my native language

[Bake]

19. I don't know what lutefisk is, but that stuff looks like ...

I don't even know what. But it doesn't look GOOD, that's for damn sure!

:rofl:

Bake

[Diclotican]

21. dbaker41

dbaker41

The picture is deceiving. It is good, very good in fact... EVEN that it looks like, as you point it good knows what.. But you should at least tried it one time so you have a judgment of it:)

That wat was they was telling my home when I first encountered Lutefisk...:evilgrin:

Diclotican

Sorry my bad english, not my native language

[tavalon]

2. It's nice that someone is thinking ahead

[Deja Q]

3. Is this their source material?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7529

They say the same thing and they are not exactly a reputable site; I put in the link only for empty convenience...

Nuclear missile attacks may spare the building... but how many years before the land becomes viable again?

Somebody is thinking ahead... yet like the bridge builder making a 50 foot bridge to go across a 75 foot river, somebody is being short-sighted.

[Zhade]

6. Thank goodness for Norway.

NT!

[dysfunctional press]

8. certainly seems like a lot of overkill...

how long do stored seeds last, as far as still being able to germinate?

and the involvement of gmo companies doesn't smell right, for one thing.

[Endangered Specie]

9. they will probably rotate them out

[SpiralHawk]

16. Global food shortages are already starting to manifest

...and this is likely to be a big, big story in the future. Saving seeds is, at this juncture, basic wisdom...

[Solon]

24. Well, I guess it would depend on the conditions...

Just recently, an extinct species of Date Palm tree, in Israel, was resurrected by seeds found in a dry cave, the seeds themselves date to about 2000 years ago.

[murray hill farm]

10. I recently read that this project

was primarily backed by Mansanto (sp) foods along with a grant from Gates, the billionair, which gives one food for thought, so to speak. Since whoever controls the world food, controls the world.

[orleans]

11. monsanto is creepy as fucking hell, imo n/t

[sasquatch]

12. Biodiversity 'doomsday vault' comes to life in Arctic

Source: AFP

LONGYEARBYEN, Norway (AFP) - Aimed at providing mankind with a Noah's Ark of food in the event of a global catastrophe, an Arctic "doomsday vault" filled with samples of the world's most important seeds will be inaugurated here Tuesday.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Nobel Peace Prize winning environmentalist Wangari Matai will be among the personalities present at the inauguration of the vault, which has been carved into the permafrost of a remote Arctic mountain, just some 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the North Pole.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080224/sc_afp/norwayarcticenvironmentwarmingcrops

---

Jesus, this is like something out of The Watchmen.
:wow:

[orleans]

13. well, this is interesting... (from your link)

"Many of the more vulnerable seed banks have begun contributing to the "doomsday vault" collection, but some of the world's biodiversity has already disappeared, with gene vaults in both Iraq and Afghanistan destroyed by war and a seed bank in the Philippines annihilated by a typhoon.

snip

"The Norwegian archipelago, which is home to some 2,300 people, was selected not despite but because of its inhospitable climate, as well as its remote location far from civil strife.

snip

"Protected by high walls of fortified concrete, an armoured door, a sensor alarm and the native polar bears that roam the region, the "doomsday vault" has been built 130 metres (425 feet) above current sea level -- high enough that it would not flood if the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melt entirely due to global warming.

"The concrete cocoon has also been built to withstand nuclear missile attacks or a plunging plane, something that could come in handy in light of the 6.4-scale tremor -- the biggest earthquake in Norway's history -- registered near the archipelago on Thursday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080224/sc_afp/norwayarcticenvironmentwarmingcrops

i don't know "the watchmen"--so i can't draw a comparison, however...it all sounds a bit grim

[BronxBoy]

14. Monsanto and Microsoft

are major sponsors of this project. Color me skeptical.

[Tesha]

15. Duplicate...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3196324

[thecrow]

17. I want to know the name and address of the guy who has the key

so *just in case* Doomsday arrives, we can get in.
Oh, and a map would be particularly helpful.

Most likely this will become a mystery of the future world.
Cockroach children will ask their parents about it
and be told all kinds of mystical stories about it.

[freedomnorth]

23. Here is a map

Watch out for those polar bears!

[MasonJar]

18. Thank you, Norway! While the USA is insuring the seeds of the Fertile Crescent

are destroyed to make way for Monsanto (in all the cabal's "delicious" idiocy), the Norwegians are helping our world survive.

[Diclotican]

22. MasonJar

MasonJar

Someone have to try to fix what is wrong you know.. And little Norway is maybe little more interest in surviving, even that it means we have to use little money now...

And svalbard _is_ part of Norway...

And this genetically modified crops are something I would be very worried about.. It is not good.. And think if a illness is to come into play with the plants?.. It have happened before, it can happened again.... In the eons from the first farmer it have always ben illness in the plants.. And I doubt that genetically modified crops would be something else, when the bugs have just crack the code...

And to trust a company alone to give you the best product, if you don't pay their horrible price for crops... I would never do that, even that it means it is just me who are crowning natural crops... Never genical modifiable crops...

Diclotican

Sorry my bad English, not my native language