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Norway to Build Doomsday Seed Bank
Kagu writes "According to the BBC, Norway is planning to build a Seed Bank in the Artic Permafrost to protect all known variations of seeds in case of worldwide disaster." From the article: "Mr Hawtin said there were currently about 1,400 seed banks around the world, but a large number of these were located in countries that were either politically unstable or that faced threats from the natural environment."
So where can i deposit my seed?
http://www.cushingproductions.com
...Oh wait, that kind of seed. I better lay low for a while...
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
One more target to add to my list!
Mwuhahahah!
Is this the promised end? Or image of that horror? KING LEAR
... it was alredy on digg.com
That's old news.
KFG
... they have some good pot seeds frozen. Why should post-apocalyptic pizza stores go bankrupt?
Trolling is a art,
1) Top Soil Storage -- Enough to dilute the nuclear fallout and to bury the bodies of the passed as well as provide sufficient nutrients for plant growth.
2) Water Supply -- Unless whatever is causing the damage will filter water.
3) Source of Light -- That volcanic ash could certainly block out needed sunlight.
4) Parking Garage -- Fer yer John Deer and other machinery (unless the human toll was minimal - labour = food)
5) Dummies Guide to Farming -- Tony Blair, George W, and all our favourite characters will get a spot in a safe location. To that I say, save the farmers.
6) Apiary -- Most plants require Pollination.
The above is by no means a complete list.
Thank goodness we have the seeds. Now I don't mean to be extremely critical since in many cases it could be sufficient. However it would be prudent to consider other requirements for growth other then just the seeds.
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
the thing
sure putting all that genetic material in the frozen wastelands sounds like a good idea, but then you get mutant sled dogs wandering away from the destroyed frozen norwegian science outposts, and pretty soon kurt russell has to fire up the flamethrower and do some genetic mutant ass kicking
sorry, this seed bank idea is bad news
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yes, I read that one in (I think) the second Dangerous Visions collection. I wonder what he was driving at with the obvious dig at Arthur Clarke?
I hope there's a foot of lead included in that shielding somewhere. To me that would seem the most vital shielding they could provide.I think they should build huge space ships with clusters of geodesic domes attached to them with artificial gravity pointing inwards and send it into orbit around Saturn. One member of the crew should be a homicidal environmentalist maniac with a talent for programming with a soldering iron. There should also be a crew of robots who are actually more intelligent and better trained than the human crew, which, now that I mention it, invalidates most of the above ideas, but any way.....
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Sounds like a challenge!
I'm forming a high skills mercenary team to go in and get those seeds.
I'll need an Olympic level biathlete , a demolitions expert, a Harrier pilot, a (preferably beautiful) horticulturist, an eskimo, a fence, and possibly an astronaut and/or a Mason.
Equal Opportunity Employer
so....
how'd you know it was the Gilmore Girls, huh?
as for me... uhm... my uhm... wife wrote that comment
Hidden vault... hopefully Geraldo will be around to find and open it for us ;-)... You may need to be an old fart to get this.
I prefer to think of it as security of the species. Come on, hear me out...
Picture this.... several hundred thousand years from now...
A series of archaeologists from the now dominant evolved-from-Dolphins species that runs the planet finds a mysterious encased tomb. Cracking their way through the concrete covering, they find a collection of primitive seeds. Despite the training provided by their utopian society, enroute to the museum a couple of seeds manage to blow away and germinate in the soil nearby. Slowly but surely, plants from a long-forgotten era slowly grow and displace the native flora. Despite their best efforts, the native flora is rapidly killed off, being entirely unsuited to compete against these primitive plants. The rapid change in the flora leads to a collapse of the entire food chain, and subsequent extinction of the dolphin race.
And then us monkeys get another crack at it! Take that Dolphin overlords!
Metre-thick walls of reinforced concrete, airlocks and high security blast-proof doors? What, are they trying to stop the seeds escaping? They only put high-security prisoners behind that kind of protection...
"Women are just like ninjas; They lie even when it is more convenient to tell the truth." ~ Unknown
Actually I saw the word "doomsday" and thought "Mr President, we cannot allow a seed bank gap!"
No, but I did think of some sort of seed that, upon germination, would cause doomsday to occur.
Sounds like something out of one of my weirder dreams...
"Quoting yourself is stupid." -Me
"While guarding the collection, some scientists starved to death rather than eat the packets of rice, corn and other seeds in their desks."
If those were from strains that were no longer existent or hard to get, then you could call them heroes. If they were widly available, they were fools.
OTOH, I would of ate them in any case.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Fool. of course it's higher! North is up.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That should be ragnarok, nothing else.
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
Building a doomsday seed seems a bit risky.
What happens if it gets lost? or a bird eats it then shits it onto an innoscent park some where.
1 year and a little water...kabooom!
just to risky...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yeah, but robots don't have passion...
I should kill you for saying that, but my programming won't let me.
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
Having not taken Murphy's Law seriously enough, the brave Norwegian seed guardians first notice Doom as a distant whistling noise.
Say, Gunter, vot is zat zound? Asks Olaf.
Vhy, I dunno! Says Gunter. It sounds almost like a vhistle!
They ponder the problem for a few seconds, and look out the window of the seed bank guard tower where they were having lunch a minute earlier. Gunter speaks first.
Olaf, there is a very strange circular shadow on the ground. It covers ze whole base!
Yes, I see, Gunter, what can zis mean?
Both men look up. The meteor Doom hangs over their heads for an instant, just like the big evil sphere in The Fifth Element, improbably rotating with a very slight cant, and then descends. Unfortunately there is no Wild Hottie available to save them... All the models are in New York for "Fashion Week". The meteor falls directly on them, squashing them all as flat as a day-old tostada.
The resulting release of energy wipes out all the plants on Earth, and the survivors think, "yeah, we should have seen it coming... Doesn't it always happen that way?"
To Norway, every other country is politically unstable ;-)
I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
I was about to respond with "except for Switzerland", but the I got to thinking that they're more likely to be invaded- neutral or not, they've got a lot of money lying around. All Norway has is lutefisk, which would probably tend to repel invaders. ;)
and while the subject matter didn't quite match, you seem to have bitten... but then by replying to this, so have I....
bugger
Where can I get some? Mwahahaha.