The Svalbard seed bank started flooding
Submitted by enhydra lutris on Sun, 05/21/2017 - 6:31pm
We built a seed bank to preserve food crop seeds against all disasters and catastrophes and buried it in the the world's biggest deep freeze, the Arctic permafrost. It is buried inside a mountain on Spitsbergen, and global warming has produced such unimaginable temperatures there that meltwater flooded into the entrance tunnel.
https://boingboing.net/2017/05/20/the-arctic-seed-bank-that-was.html
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/19/arctic-stronghold-of...
Comments
Antarctica is turning Green...
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/may/18/climate-change-is-turnin...
" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "
the seeds from what I hear are still safe, not wet.
If that is credible information, then things may be fine, other than a sump pump will be necessary. I am fairly sure they are not packaged in envelopes without water barriers.
Not that it matters but in the lab (better provenance) I have germinated Oenothera seeds that were 30 years old, from an envelope at room temp the entire time.
Give the story more time.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
A noble Idea.
Unfortunately it didn't take into account for one problem:
Humanity as we know it is quickly reaching it's demise. I hope those who visit from other worlds can use the seeds we will never need. I find it unlikely, as we will leave behind an uninhabitable blue marble.
Or will it be red?
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Humanity may wind up on a
Humanity may wind up on a gray and brown ball in space. and Mars will take a Looooooong time to Terra form, meaning people will be needing to live very precariously. Elon Musk fantasy for us to go to Mars does not seem to mention the years it will take to fix an already dead planet.
Best hope if it can be called such is a cryo-ship or generations ship to a place they know has a livable planet to go to, and by then, the people may have been raised to avoid the bad habits we have here on Earth.
My fear is that all it will lead to is somewhere down the line a "wash-rinse"repeat" of our screw ups here.
Those folks will have to NOT put sociopaths and psychopaths in charge, not allow the worship of selfishness and greed.
So long, and thanks for all the fish