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"Doomsday" Arctic Seed Vault Tapped For First Time In History As Syrian Civil War Threatens Biodiversity
With Russian boots officially on the ground at Latakia and with rumors circulating that the PLA may arrive within weeks, Syria has officially replaced eastern Ukraine as the most likely theatre for the start of World War 3.
While we certainly hope that cooler heads will prevail, the determination on the part of Washington, Riyadh, and Doha to oust the Assad regime simply isn’t compatible with Tehran and Moscow’s efforts to preserve the existing global balance of power which means that something will ultimately have to give and if it becomes clear that Iran is set to benefit in any way from whatever the outcome ends up being, expect Benjamin Netanyahu to make another trip to The Kremlin, only next time, he won’t be so cordial.
For those who - much like a certain CIA “strategic asset” - are looking for signs that Syria’s four-year old, bloody civil war might mark the beginning of the apocalypse, look no further than the Svalbard Global Seed Vault which was tapped for first time in history in response to the uncertain future of Aleppo. Here’s Reuters:
Syria's civil war has prompted the first withdrawal of seeds from a "doomsday" vault built in an Arctic mountainside to safeguard global food supplies, officials said on Monday.
The seeds, including samples of wheat, barley and grasses suited to dry regions, have been requested by researchers elsewhere in the Middle East to replace seeds in a gene bank near the Syrian city of Aleppo that has been damaged by the war.
"Protecting the world's biodiversity in this manner is precisely the purpose of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault," said Brian Lainoff, a spokesman for the Crop Trust, which runs the underground storage on a Norwegian island 1,300 km (800 miles) from the North Pole.
The vault, which opened on the Svalbard archipelago in 2008, is designed to protect crop seeds - such as beans, rice and wheat - against the worst cataclysms of nuclear war or disease.
It has more than 860,000 samples, from almost all nations. Even if the power were to fail, the vault would stay frozen and sealed for at least 200 years.
The Aleppo seed bank has kept partly functioning, including a cold storage, despite the conflict. But it was no longer able to maintain its role as a hub to grow seeds and distribute them to other nations, mainly in the Middle East.
In other words, the violence in and around Aleppo now poses a threat to global food supplies by curtailing the production of seeds for drought-resistant crops.
As far-fetched as that might sound on the surface, the threat is apparently real enough to have prompted the first withdrawal in history from a seed bank built into the side of a frozen mountain. Here's more on the Svalbard "doomsday" vault from the official website:
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. Something as mundane as a poorly functioning freezer can ruin an entire collection. And the loss of a crop variety is as irreversible as the extinction of a dinosaur, animal or any form of life.
Remote by any standards, Svalbard’s airport is in fact the northernmost point in the world to be serviced by scheduled flights – usually one a day. Its remoteness enhances the security of the facility, yet local infrastructure in the nearby small Norwegian settlement of Longyearbyen is excellent. The Vault is thus accessible, and seeds can easily be transported to and retrieved from Svalbard.
The Seed Vault has the capacity to store 4.5 million varieties of crops. Each variety will contain on average 500 seeds, so a maximum of 2.5 billion seeds may be stored in the Vault.
Currently, the Vault holds more than 860,000 samples, originating from almost every country in the world. Ranging from unique varieties of major African and Asian food staples such as maize, rice, wheat, cowpea, and sorghum to European and South American varieties of eggplant, lettuce, barley, and potato. In fact, the Vault already holds the most diverse collection of food crop seeds in the world.
The focus of the Vault is to safeguard as much of the world’s unique crop genetic material as possible, while also avoiding unnecessary duplication. It will take some years to assemble because some genebanks need to multiply stocks of seed first, and other seeds need regenerating before they can be shipped to Svalbard.
A temperature of -18ºC is required for optimal storage of the seeds, which are stored and sealed in custom made three-ply foil packages. The packages are sealed inside boxes and stored on shelves inside the vault. The low temperature and moisture levels inside the Vault ensure low metabolic activity, keeping the seeds viable for long periods of time.
And here's a look at the outside and inside of the repository that would be tapped in the event a cataclysm threatens global food supplies:






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Joke
I wonder how many people lay claim to each seed.
Rehydroponicated.
What a fucking boondoggle.
100:1 most of the funding for this came from the liberals over at the National Science Foundation.
1000:1 the RFP came from the same program managers handing out global warming / climate change funding.
1,000,000:1 this project has formed the basis for the professional careers of at least 1,000 different scientists.
Yet another example of how the global warming charade must continue or tens of thousands will be out on the street looking for work.
Yowza! Why does man think that he can control the universe?
Arrogance. Earth will be here long after man has destroyed himself.
Better have them shipped to Monsanto first to have them genetically optimized.
FU** Monsanto!
"Some folks were seeded."
Those pesky self-serving scientists. When will they stop interfering with the selfless dedicated businessmen whose mandate is to propagate altruism without profit for the benefit of non-shareholders. /sarc
They have any primo cannabis seeds there?
Sowing the seeds of destruction.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/seeds.html
forget the seed bank...
why can't we create a freaking pond bank to put that stupid Delta Smelt Fish in to extend it's existence forever rather than destroying farmers and reservoirs in California because some libtard is afraid the little fish will die!
The earth has unlimited resources. Im sure those farmers can find another river to drink from.
Each country makes its own deposits. It's like a ...bank.
And NONE of it has been tested for seed vigour.
Seed deteriorates during storage, and its the seeds vigour that determines the length of storage it can withstand, and how well it will survive once it has germinated.
You can have genetically pure, 100% germinating seed, but its vigour is shit then it won't survive even small stresses in the environment let alone long storage in even ideal conditions.
On the other hand, a shit seed lot with poor germination and mediocre genetic purity but fantastic vigour can survive long storage periods and will grow despite 3 feet of snow in the middle of summer.
Care to guess which seeds were chosen to be placed into these seed banks?
Fifty years from now most of us will no longer give a shit.......
I come to this site for optimism of this sort, fifty years, you made my day
I've got one of these planned, for when I start spinning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_coffin
Currently it is only my head spinning and does not affect my daily activities.
I've had my Bad Attitude for more than a few decaces now, so it is expected.
<< Fifty years from now most of us will no longer give a shit....... >>
Why fifty years?
We came. We read. We died.
Heheh. That could definitely work as an alternative motto for this website.
That's roughly when the phosphorus crisis hits, right?
"..."Doomsday" Arctic Seed Vault Tapped For First Time In History As Syrian Civil War Threatens Biodiversity..."
Oh, weekend Tyler... How about "Seed Vault Tapped For First Time in History As the U.S.-engineered Civil War in Syria Threatens Biodiversity"?
"...if it becomes clear that Iran is set to benefit in any way from whatever the outcome ends up being, expect Benjamin Netanyahu to make another trip to The Kremlin, only next time, he won’t be so cordial..."
Yeah... Putin is peeing in his pants at the thought of gettin Bibi mad. Ooops:
Russian marines in first Battle against ISIS in Syria
Oh hell... if Debka's spew about a Russain/Hezbolla/SAA team effort is true, then it means Putin couldn't give a rat's ass what Israel thinks of ANYTHING regarding Syria. But then he never did...
"...In other words, the violence in and around Aleppo now poses a threat to global food supplies by curtailing the production of seeds for drought-resistant crops..."
Well, no. ICARDA was forced out of their Aleppo location to Beirut in 2012. They have been distributing their seed bank all over the world for protection. The Aleppo facility is still limping along, but continuously threatened by 1) the FSA rebels, 2) al Nusra head choppers and 3) fake ISIS. The Syrian government isn't threatening their own seed bank.
Syrian ICARDA seed bank people called for the withdrawal from Svalbard to be sent to Mexico (among other places) to grow commercial quantities of seed and to have larger quantities distributed in storage. They can't do it in Aleppo because of the U.S. head-chopper problem, and the fact that the U.S. is trying to cut the electric grid in Syria.
The latest U.S. clownfuckery was steering ISIS to the Syrian natural gas processing facilities near the main natural gas hub for virtually all of Syria: Palmyra. Damascus and Homs get all their electricity from natural gas. The U.S. 'final blow' to Assad was going to be to cut natural gas = electricity to Damascus for a final head-chopper push.
That's why one of Russia's first interventions with satellite intelligence for the Syrian Army had to do with Palmyra. That's why Russian precision bombs and aircraft were sudenly needed. Incidentally, in their usual blowback-prone buffoonery, the U.S. blew most of the Syrian natural gas wells supplying Palmyra. The only ones left sending gas are the CHINESE-owned gas wells, which sustained some damage as well. The U.S. (probably under Chinese threats) had to tell ISIS not to cut the gas lines or the U.S. would risk WWIII with China. If China is sending troops to Syria, it will in part be to protect their gas wells around Palmyra from U.S. head-choppers and to kill CIA-recruited Uyghur jihadis in Idlib.
I don't think the U.S. intentionally wanted to threaten the world's food supply, but what the hell - they were in the neighborhood and figured, "Why not?"
Hey hungrydweller. Your name aptly states your condition if Monsanto continues use of Seeds of Death. That is genetically altered seeds that WILL NOT MAKE REPRODUCABLE PLANTS so you always have to come to them for seed.
If the DNA of the plant's pollen or from seed destruction ever mutates and gets into the general population you could be a "hungrydweller" indeed.
Better buy a parka.....you'll get mighty cold banging on the Seed Vault's door.
Seeds Of Death _ The Movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUd9rRSLY4A
They've got some of my seeds too.
Boy's or Girl's?
wtf was the original seed bank doing in a place like the middle east ?
Being swapped for barrels of Basra light.
Bremer seized the oldest wheat strains in the world from Iraq.
That bank ain't for the peeps.
See MonSatan's aluminum resistant poison.
Did Bremer ever cough up those missing billions of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$?
Relative humidity is the biggest threat to long term seed storage.
No, apparantly the Syrians asked for about a third of their seed back.
Syria had some of the oldest wheat on the planet.
Syria is one of th eoldest countries and arguably the first place where Christianity spread. Sadly MIC, ZATO and ZWO, and Rita Katz ISIS wanted to murder the Christians in Syria.
Just like the Bolsheviks wanted to murder 25 million Russian Christians.
THAT IS ILLEGAL.
We must make sure they are only shipped approved stock from an official Monsanto Distribution Center.
How dare they try to end run Big Seed.
Rat Bastards.
No, apparantly the Syrians asked for about a third of their seed back.
Syria had some of the oldest wheat on the planet.
Cool,why go to so much touble, seeds from the Pyramids still were viable and grew when planted,over 2000yrs old.(when,not IF we have the global thermo nuclear war, it won't make a diddly.)
Honey bees are the engine that sustains life of grain stuffs on the planet.(and they have been devastated yearly by disease.)ALL the G modded seeds have SCREWED up the natural order of things reproducing after thier own kind.Monsanto and other HUGE AG's have seen to it, to have all this Hybrid crap to control all food on the planet.
Yeah, with just over a foot of rain per year it makes perfect sense!...lol.
//////
Wut? 12.9 on average.
#NonGmoSeedsMatterToo ;-)
It's doomsday for 200 species everyday:
UN Environment Programme: 200 Species Extinct Every Day, Unlike Anything Since Dinosaurs Disappeared 65 Million Years Agohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/17/un-environment-programme-_n_684...
Species Extinction Happening 1,000 Times Faster Because of Humans?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140529-conservation-scie...
Nonsense. WWF propaganda for governance.
And I thought Rupert Murdoch was gonna' straighten out that NatGeo crowd.
the only species disappearing is the white european race for some reason wwf doesnt care
Species Extinction Happening 1,000 Times Faster Because of Humans?
Wut!? Do you mean like the Chi-Com's dredging & filling over the top of atolls and little fishy-fish reefs? The poor creatures never stood a chance!
Where's the UN on this enviromental outrage? Where's the Green Pope?! He should fly back (on his carbon emitting jet) to DC immediately and along with Obie Won Obama and a united Congress confront this killer of small life form species (Xi Jinping) in a bi-partisan way! ;-)
Easy! Take a regular Pope, give a glass of Brazilian water, and you get a Pope that feels very green. ;-)
It is a shame that the UN is not extinct.
Theatrics.
Why waste seeds in a situation that's totally fucked up?
May as well just burn 'em as nothing's going to help so long as bombs are falling and guns are firing.
Fucking theatrics!
Keep the seeds safe until something resembling stability will give them a chance of doing some good.
A bit like trying to plant a lawn at the Battle of the Somme.
Don't worry, Monsanto will save us.....
That's the spirit.
http://s25.postimg.org/rpkopaqq7/Monsatan.jpg
Indeed.......
Monsanto owns the vault. No not really, but I would bet my last bernanko buck they tried
Funding for the seed bank, built from the remains of an abandoned mine, was provided largely by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with the aim of permanently protecting agricultural and plant biodiversity. http://blogs.worldwatch.org/five-global-seed-banks-that-are-protecting-b...
there, feexed it
So Russia steps in to help Asad in Syria, And they think they need to open a "global" seed bank? We arent getting the whole story.
Is there some provocation going on here? Are they expecting "global" crops to suffer because of what has started to happen?
Something stinks.
No kidding, what a weird day. That vault makes no sense, judging by the fits of Boehner, Hillary and Yeller there may be a disturbance in the force causing host and demon to deamalgamate. Somebody should see if Bibi is still hosting Lucifer and make sure Kissinger hasn't degerated into a pile of putrid slime.
I think Russia is "stepping in" more to protect its wider border area. Protecting Assad is collateral but important for them. Russia has the same fears as China being surrounded by unfriendly and very aggressive countries.
This is an unimportant story
Not. This Svalbarg Seed Vault was bored into a frozen mountainside in 2008. I mean, it was started and finished, blasting and all, in 2008.
Never mind the timing. It's certainly not unimportant.
To be clear, the seed vault is important, but syria's request for seeds is below the news interest threshold.
Clarity is good. If I simply misunderstand- apologies.
Pretty much everything worth knowing is below the news interest theshold.
So, we agree... to agree?
Seeds need protection from their GMO not war. Can things possibly get any weirder?
Arctic Seed Vault. The usual subjects
https://youtu.be/69bLgOgbZVk?t=4491
There are others: Five Global Seed Banks That Are Protecting Biodiversity (c/o WorldWatch.org)
Strange how they reportedly focus almost exclusively on plant seeds. You can't rebuild a food chain without animals: "Colorado State University National Center for Genetic Resources...is unique in that it does not simply host seeds, but various types of germplasms, or collections of genetic information, including plants, animals, insects, and microorganisms."
Strange that such effort is made to preserve original genetics while funding is simultaneously poured into the synthesis, production and marketing of potentially harmful Genetically Modified Organisms to a largely unsuspecting public. I guess maybe the elites want to reserve God's original product for themselves, while fucking it up for the rest of us?
Somewhere in the midst of all this is the kernel for some kind of Agenda 21 "sustainability" bullshit.
The Hastings area of New Zealand will be GMO free. There are also some areas in Europe.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11512135
They do have agrobacterium tumefaciens in NZ...
"If global CO2 levels drop to zero, people would not even notice any difference in the air. Plants, on the other hand, would starve. Since CO2 can be controlled, indoor farms could be made to contain normal concentrations of it even if the natural level was at zero. This would mean that if the global level did go to zero, despite mass starvation, there would still be survivors… wealthy survivors."
Now it's the 2030 Agenda and it's already being initiated at a local level in your town.
About the 2030 Districtshttp://www.2030districts.org/about-2030-districts
From the link above. I've helpfully marked all the buzzwords, jargon and industry argot from their introduction, terms that the social warrior types like to inflict on normal communications. Make any sense with these markers gone? Didn't think so...
First established in Seattle, 2030 Districts® are in the vanguard of the grassroots effort to create longterm partnerships, coalitions, and collaboration around achievable and measurable goals for renovating hundreds of millions of square feet of existing urban and suburban areas and infrastructure, as well as for infill development and redevelopment. 2030 Districts® are unique private/ public partnerships that bring property owners and managers together with local governments, businesses, and community stakeholders to provide a business model for urban sustainability through collaboration, leveraged financing, and shared resources. Together they benchmark, develop and implement creative strategies, best practices and verification methods for measuring progress towards a common goal.
A couple of months ago I read that plant life started taking off only when CO2 levels reached ~182ppm. If that's true then we should be worried about current levels already being too low.
I heard that the real problem was the decline of oxygen, bonded with carbon -
"oxygen in samples of dinosaur-era amber as: 28% (130m years ago), 29% (115m years ago), 35% (95m years ago), 33% (88m years ago), 35% (75m years ago), 35% (70m years ago), 35% (68m years ago), 31% (65.2m years ago), and 29% (65m years ago).
Professor Ervin Laszlo -
"Evidence from prehistoric times indicates that the oxygen content of pristine nature was above the 21% of total volume that it is today. It has decreased in recent times due mainly to the burning of coal in the middle of the last century. Currently the oxygen content of the Earth's atmosphere dips to 19% over impacted areas, and it is down to 12 to 17% over the major cities. At these levels it is difficult for people to get sufficient oxygen to maintain bodily health: it takes a proper intake of oxygen to keep body cells and organs, and the entire immune system, functioning at full efficiency. At the levels we have reached today cancers and other degenerative diseases are likely to develop. And at 6 to 7% life can no longer be sustained."
Bullshit. The amount of oxygen in the atmosphere is roughly 150.000 tonnes per human being on earth, currently.
To consume it would require burning 500 trillion tonnes or 500.000 billion tonnes of carbon. China barely mines around 10 billion tonnes a year. Not even counting photosynthesis.
Math is not popular around here.
Atmospheric oxygen for 1st graders:
Earth surface area=Roughly 500 million square kilometers. One square kilometer equals one million square meters.
Atmpheric pressure of 1 bar equals 10 tonnes per square meter. With oxygen being 21%, theres 2 tonnes of oxygen in the atmosphere for each square meter.
Multiply Earth's surface in square meters by 2 tonnes to get the amount of oxygen on the atmosphere
500000000x1000000x2
Equals to 1000 trillion tonnes. Combined with carbon in the form of CO2 would take 2 oxygens for every carbon. So roughly 500 trillion tonnes of carbon.
Looks like something out of metal gear
I have not looked at video games for a while but Metal Gear looks pretty amazing.
This seed vault reminds me of an older game Half Life or Resident Evil.
500 Days until climate chaos" or somthing like that..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QDJb6fF8pg
That 500 days ends tomorrow.
Da-da-daaaaaaaaah.
Grand plan (honestly) to ensure the survivability of the next generation of Homo Sapiens, unfortunately not for the current inhabitants.
I hope they have some McDonalds seeds in there............
Bush's, Clinton's, Obama. Now those are some Pure Evil Seeds.
Wouldn't an ETF make more sense? Paper is much easier to store.
Eureka! That's it, let's digitize the seeds!
That's much much smaller (approaching complete nothingness in mass & weight) and we can secure them all in the cloud and create impervious passwords to access them and a block chain for accounting purposes!
Why, we can call it...BitSeeds ;-)
An exchange already exists....
https://exchange.seedsavers.org/index.aspx?_ga=1.179830435.601658367.144...
I don't believe photographs and words. I'm an English major.
I will give them some of my seed....
I keep my seed cool and plant them where it's warm and wet. Don't worry I have enough for all you Bitchez!
I wonder if cycling the stored seed stock -- the same way you cycle stored food and fuel in your bunker at home -- is routine? If so then this might be more about a last shot at testing and replenishing (while under ISIS mortar fire) than doomsday. If I were a Syrian botanist I'd be trying to get as much seed tested and sent back to the vault as I could before the minions of Allah cut of my apostate head because I gave a shit about the future.
Yes, they do test germination of seeds at various intervals from a few years to a decade. A portion of the seeds sent for storage are set aside for germination tests. When seeds get "old". some seeds are grown into plants and new seeds replace old seeds in storage. It's not a "store and forget" type of vault.
Makes sense to take ancient strains of crop seeds from a place that rarely freezes - and stash them in perpetual cold. I wonder what will happen if Syria tries to plant them and NOTHING grows!
The timing is also odd - with Russia moving into Syria - maybe it's Russian grain and potato seeds needed in the production of Syrian vodka!
I think Assad donated some of his seed.
The people who got rich of this hoax will be long gone by the time everyone realizes they got hoodwinked.
I'd like to see the creation of a massive frozen pizza bank. I could live on that!
How about those hardhats? A dead giveaway that those pics were taken on the flip side of peak civilization.
"Pull it"
If you like your seeds, you can keep your seeds.
They also have a massive collection of porn just in case of an apocalypse. It's part of the lesser known Spank Vault.
Since just about everyone is already in the region, and will be at the UN, it seems like a perfect opportunity for everyone to finally get on the same page and build the biggest cooperative coalition since the one that forced Saddam out of Kuwait.
After all the goal of everyone is to take out ISIS. And now you can add in the common goal of preserving crop biodiversity. As if we haven't screwed up the planet enough with petty disputes and avarice.
Let's hope special interests and individual goals don't prevent this from happening.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/09/24/obama-vladimir-putin...
Assad regime?
He got elected for fucksake.
While only an Assad, Qadaffi or Hussein figure can rule an arab country, their elections are always phony. Idem for Kim and his 99% approval ratings.
re ...Syrian Civil War Threatens Biodiversity
USSA/ISISrael Criminal Aggression Threatens Biodiversity
- FIXED
Long collateralised seed obligations.
Nuts!
Deez, of course.
My great regrets .... I never had a star registered in my name .... I never saved any of my seed ?
If you look close enough I think you can see Walt Disney's head.
Control the seed, you control the feed
I don't know. What's wrong with storing seeds in the event of some natural or unnatural catastrophe? Preppers do it all the time. This is just on a global scale.
-Argenta