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Arctic stronghold of worlds seeds flooded after permafrost melts [seeds are safe]

WedgeX

Banned
Courtesy the Guardian.

The Guardian said:
It was designed as an impregnable deep-freeze to protect the world’s most precious seeds from any global disaster and ensure humanity’s food supply forever. But the Global Seed Vault, buried in a mountain deep inside the Arctic circle, has been breached after global warming produced extraordinary temperatures over the winter, sending meltwater gushing into the entrance tunnel.

The vault is on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen and contains almost a million packets of seeds, each a variety of an important food crop. When it was opened in 2008, the deep permafrost through which the vault was sunk was expected to provide “failsafe” protection against “the challenge of natural or man-made disasters”.

But soaring temperatures in the Arctic at the end of the world’s hottest ever recorded year led to melting and heavy rain, when light snow should have been falling. “It was not in our plans to think that the permafrost would not be there and that it would experience extreme weather like that,” said Hege Njaa Aschim, from the Norwegian government, which owns the vault.

Continuing the dangers of melting permafrost.

Edit:

Thankfully no seeds were lost.
 
When it was opened in 2008, the deep permafrost through which the vault was sunk was expected to provide “failsafe” protection against “the challenge of natural or man-made disasters”.

"So... uh... we forgot one particular man-made disaster..."
 

Akuun

Looking for meaning in GAF
Good to hear the seeds are safe.

At the same time, I'm kind of surprised that a vault built in the Arctic and intended to survive nature is having trouble coping with the effects of global warming.
 

Griss

Member
I realise the point of the story is that climate change is happening quickly, but... come on guys, you really didn't think of that? This thing was supposed to be a vault to last decades...
 
This is actually very terrible. This seed vault is one of the few things that gives me hope in our future. It has clean, non GMO varieties and strains of every important plant on earth stored in case of emergency. It's as if Norway was prepping for all of us. Hopefully this flood didn't ruin the entire store.
 

Weckum

Member
Scary.

But that seed vault looks so badass:

700_b794dd4728d670a0bc8584c634b74426.jpg

svalbard-global-22-1920x1200.jpg

29seeds-span-600.jpg
 

Stopdoor

Member
This is actually very terrible. This seed vault is one of the few things that gives me hope in our future. It has clean, non GMO varieties and strains of every important plant on earth stored in case of emergency. It's as if Norway was prepping for all of us. Hopefully this flood didn't ruin the entire store.

The OP doesn't highlight it for some reason, but the article tagline says "No seeds were lost". So, good, I guess.
 

WedgeX

Banned
The OP doesn't highlight it for some reason, but the article tagline says "No seeds were lost". So, good, I guess.

For some reason I thought they included it in the first three paragraphs. Instead they don't mention it in the article itself at all. Will add a note.
 

LQX

Member
That seems short-sighted, it is still fricken ice. The possibility it would melt should have still been taken into account.
 

Toxi

Banned
I've talked to people who contributed to this. I can't imagine how they feel. At least none of the seeds were destroyed.
 
Fuck the republicans. "Lets peel back all environmental regulations so that we get rid of Obama's legacy and also make oil tycoons rich." These people are the worst.
 
That seems short-sighted, it is still fricken ice. The possibility it would melt should have still been taken into account.

It's definitely old school thinking. There was thinking that this was sufficient when it comes to storing the waste of old mines in northern Canada...
 

Dyle

Member
I hope they can fix this somehow, there are basically no other places on Earth that could handle a steady interior temperature of -18 C and not have everything around it melt.
 
Global warming takes the perma out of permafrost. Its tempfrost. If humans had longer lifespans I think we would take this issue more seriously. But as of now, very few of us living will be effected by global warming. Our grand kids and great grand kids will be fucked later in their lives though. We approach global warming like the Reggie not my problem .jpg
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
The concept itself is nonsense.
 

Lautaro

Member
Global warming takes the perma out of permafrost. Its tempfrost. If humans had longer lifespans I think we would take this issue more seriously. But as of now, very few of us living will be effected by global warming. Our grand kids and great grand kids will be fucked later in their lives though. We approach global warming like the Reggie not my problem .jpg

I'm starting to believe most of us will actually see the first effects. Not something as radical as coastal cities being evacuated but maybe crops failing (by drought) in certain countries could lead to even bigger refugee crisis and regional wars.

On topic: this is pretty disappointing. I want to believe they were just careless but this is a project made by smart people so that makes it even more worrying. If the smart people with resources can't get it right, we are so fucked.
 
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