Global warming, the threat of nuclear war, genetically-modified crops and industrial farming all threaten the future of food. Our salvation may lie in a “doomsday vault,” buried deep in a mountain on an island next to the North Pole.
This vault holds about 2 million seeds, and almost all the varieties of the world?s crops are represented. In New Scientist, Fred Pearce quotes the directory of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, Cary Fowler, as saying, “If the worst came to the worst, this would allow the world to reconstruct agriculture on this planet.”
The US government has just begun to admit that global warming is a reality, but tiny Norway is already taking action by creating this $3 million seed bank. Even if climate change accelerates rapidly, it will still take decades to penetrate the thick walls of the vault, where seeds that represent 10,000 years of plant breeding worldwide, are being held at a freezing temperature.
Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
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