Us doomsday vault2/2/2024 The idea was formally presented in a February 2008 conference in Strasbourg, France. And now, the European Space Agency is involved. The Alliance to Rescue Civilization, based at New York University and headed up by scientists who have served in upper echelons of government, academia and private research, has big plans for the end of the world. The idea isn't new - a bunch of surprisingly legitimate and highly respected scientists first suggested the idea in 2006, and while the scoffing was loud, it wasn't deafening enough to shut the concept down. (Or just pretend "24" is our reality and Jack Bauer is nowhere to be found.) Even to those of us who aren't fatalists, it doesn't seem completely far-fetched, given recent events.Įnter the so-called Doomsday Ark on the moon. Throw in bird flu making the inter-species jump and a successful bioterrorist attack and you're looking at very bad news for civilization. Imagine a war that leads to a nuclear detonation that triggers earthquakes, which trigger tsunamis that bring on a period of famine along major coastlines. Sure, "doomsday" may be a huge, sudden affair, like nuclear holocaust or an asteroid collision, but it could also be the result of a string of several smaller events that leave the human race all but eradicated. You never know.Ĭall it a dark view of the Butterfly Effect: The end of the world as we know it may not come in an explosion heard round the world or the rapid extinction of entire species that can't survive global warming. The incident didn't lead to rioting, looting and a declaration of Martial Law that led to widespread protest and the toppling of the U.S. It was actually just the result of a tree falling in Cleveland that took out a major power line, causing a blackout in cities all along the coast. There are plans to open it twice more for deposits this year: once from June 6 to June 10 and again from October 24 to October 27.When a huge chunk of the northeastern United States went dark in 2003, it's likely that a terrorist attack was one of the first thoughts to cross people's minds. Fortunately, no seed samples were damaged in either event, and the facility has many safeguards in place to protect its precious contents from catastrophe.Īfter adding more seeds to its catalog, the seed vault will seal its doors again on February 18. Melting permafrost flooded the vault in 2017, and in 2020, the Svalbard archipelago where it's located hit a record high of 71☏. The 11,000-square-foot facility is built into the side of an Arctic mountain, the hope being that its remote location in the frozen tundra will spare it from wars and rising temperatures threatening plants elsewhere on the planet.īut as we've seen in recent years, the global seed bank isn't entirely impervious. The Svalbard Global Seed Bank began operating in 2008 as a physical backup drive for the world's crops. Its collections at home have become robust enough for ICARDA to deposit around 8000 samples in the global seed vault this week. The organization has since relocated from Aleppo to Beirut and rebuilt its seed stores. In 2015, ICARDA become the first group to withdraw material from the bank to replenish seeds destroyed in the Syrian War. The Lebanese contribution comes from the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas, or ICARDA. On Monday, February 14, Germany, Sudan, Uganda, New Zealand, and Lebanon sent samples of important crops to the bank on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. As Reuters reports, the Arctic fortress has been unlocked for the first time in 2022-this time to make deposits instead of withdrawals. The so-called "doomsday vault" contains 1.1 million seed samples from roughly 6000 plant species that serve as insurance against natural and human-made disasters. In an ideal world, the Svalbard Global Seed Bank in Norway rarely has to open its doors.
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