Doomsday Ark
"Look! The day of the Lord is near, a cruel day of wrath and great wrath, to devastate the earth and destroy their sinners." - Isaiah 13:9
Deep inside a mountain on a remote island in the Svalbard archipelago, halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, lies the Global Seed Vault.
Plant genetic resources are one of the most valuable assets of human societies.
The plants we use today are cultivated variants - the results of thousands of years of breeding efforts – that have been adapted to our tastes, needs and industrial production methods.
During the millennia a wealth of cultivars has been bred to suit different growing conditions; climate, soil, day-length, diseases or pests and societal needs.
In fact some 75 percent of plant genetic diversity has been lost since 1990s as farmers worldwide have left their multiple local landraces for genetically uniform, high-yielding varieties.
Uniform gene base implies both global and local risks.
Today, 75 percent of the world’s food is generated from only 12 plants and 5 animal species.
This means that changes in climate, new diseases or other environmental changes can have widespread impacts for food security.
Thats why it is the most important room created by mankind.
Saving the Past and Future of Agriculture.
Maybe the only one with the really purpose of helping humanity.
Even after it's over.
The GSV it is a long-term seed storage facility, built to stand the test of time — and the challenge of natural or man-made disasters.
The Seed Vault is designed with a 1000 year design life to store back-up samples of every crop crop seed in the world.
Represents the world’s largest collection of crop diversity.
Worldwide, more than 1,700 genebanks hold collections of food crops for safekeeping, yet many of these are vulnerable, exposed not only to natural catastrophes and war, but also to avoidable disasters, such as lack of funding or poor management.
The loss of a crop variety is as irreversible as the extinction of a dinosaur, animal or any form of life.
It was the recognition of the vulnerability of the world’s genebanks that sparked the idea of establishing a global seed vault to serve as a backup storage facility.
The purpose of the Vault is to store duplicates (backups) of seed samples from the world’s crop collections.
Svalbard was chosen for several reasons.
Its cold climate and permafrost make the area a perfect location for underground cold storage.
The surrounding sandstone is stable for building and is low in radiation.
In terms of security, Svalbard scores high marks compared to the locations of many other genebanks in the world.
The infrastructure is good, with daily flights and a reliable source of energy from local coal supplies.
The vault is located an extraordinary 120 meters (393.7 feet) into the rock, ensuring that the vault rooms will remain naturally frozen even in the event of failure of the mechanical cooling system and rising external air temperatures due to climate change.
I believe this is the best project to protect our biome future.
And our biodiversity.
But the question is, we humans, will we be able to use the ark after a catastrophe?
From it, will we be able to rebuild the Earth biome?
Or feed humanity?
Anyway, the ark is doing its part.
And we hope it is never necessary.
Then let the Doomsday Ark be just a database backup of the Earth's nature.
Or perhaps it will be for the posterity of future civilizations or be used on other planets.
Who Knows.
Source:
https://www.croptrust.org/
https://www.norden.org/en/news/why-global-seed-vault-so-important