Apparently, some folks are taking our rapidly changing climate seriously. Hence the construction of a seriously well thought out seed vault on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near the town of Longyearbyen (population 1900) in the remote arctic Svalbard archipelago.
Think of it as a Noah's Ark for plants.
From wikipedia:
"The Svalbard International Seed Vault's mission is to store as many seeds known to humans as possible, under the terms of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The goal is to prevent important agricultural and wild plants from becoming rare or extinct in the event of a global disaster such as global warming, a meteorite strike, nuclear or biological warfare, or gene pollution from transgenic plants. There are already over 1400 local seedbanks around the world, but many are in politically unstable or environmentally threatened nations. When this seedbank is built, the vault will be secure and isolated from much of the world's population."
It's nice to know it will be there. Let's hope we don't have to rely on it.
Wait a second, I think we should immediately begin construction of our OWN seed vault! We cannot allow a seed vault gap!
Here's their site: Svalbard Global Seed Vault
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