FYI. Monsanto has nothing to do with the Vault. Absolutely nothing. It's not theirs (it's Norway's). Monsanto didn't fund it. Their seeds are not being stored there, etc. This is a case of an irresponsible and inaccurate article being posted here, and then rumors taking off. People assume the worst. In this case, I am happy to report, they are wrong. See www.croptrust for more information, or google the Norwegian government's website on the Seed Vault.
Guess I might agree with you IF the most basic facts in the story reported here were correct. They're not. Monsanto has no involvement in the project. NONE AT ALL. They haven't funded it (not a penny). They don't own or control the seeds. None of the seeds there will be theirs (like a safety deposit box, they will remain the property of the depositor - in this case countries and international agricultural research institutes). There's no evidence that Monsanto even knows about the Seed Vault. It's a good initiative by the Norwegian government and the Global Crop Diversity Trust. Think the Norwegian government is in bed with Monsanto? They don't even allow Monsanto to sell GMO seeds in Norway. How odd that Norway would pay to construct the Vault in league with Monsanto to further eugenics (as the original article asserts). Clearly this is the case of a badly researched article starting a wildfire of rumors. It's a disservice to good people trying to do something positive. Check out www.croptrust.org for the facts.
The list of companies "participating" is completely wrong. The author simply failed to do his homework; I will leave the question of why to your imagination. I will simply assert, for example, that Monsanto has had absolutely nothing to do with the project. It isn't a funder. It wasn't their idea. They are not sending seeds, etc., etc. For some background on the project, check out www.croptrust.org or google the Norwegian government's website on it, or google the New Yorker's article, the BBC reports, etc. etc. The southern African countries are sending seeds. Think they would be involved with a eugenics initiative as the original article implies? Think Norway and the other Nordic countries would? This is a wonderful example of the danger in believing conspiracy theories without at least doing a little homework. This one doesn't pass the giggle test.
Thanks for your post. Indeed, the original "article," is in serious need of a fact checker. The companies cited as funders are not. And to think that an honest effort to provide a safety net to protect the biodiversity in existing seed banks (which is so essential to future agriculture) is somehow a plot by the Norwegian government and an endowment fund (with a Nobel Peace prize winner as vice-chair) is absurd. People should do a minimum of "due diligence" before posting slanderous comments. See the Norwegian government website, or go to www.croptrust.org for more info. Again, thanks for interjecting some sanity into the rumor mill.
In such situations one always deals with probabilities. No one is saying that the Seed Vault will offer an absolute guarantee in the event of an apocalyptic scenario. It will always be possible to imagine a scenario in which the Seed Vault won't save us...and then fault it or its sponsors for not having devised a perfect system. That's an easy game to play if one is so inclined. While the Seed Vault would likely provide some reasonable protection in such situations, it was actually designed for the purpose of ensuring against disasters that strike individual institutes, or countries. To me that's a good enough reason to move forward with it. Today, interestingly, I visited the Philippine national seed bank. A little over a year ago, it was inundated with about four feet of water and mud following a typhoon. Only a small percentage of its unique crop varieties (stored as seed) was safety-duplicated elsewhere. The result? Many varieties were lost. Forever. That means they are now extinct! If we had had the Seed Vault, and if the Philippines had sent a portion of each variety of seed there before the typhoon, then they could have recovered everything. No extinction. The cost to the Philippines of the storage in the Seed Vault? Zero. The cost of losing diversity that might be important to the future of agriculture in the Philippines and elsewhere? Who knows? But certainly large. So...let's not get completely stuck on the global catastrophe scenario. Let's look at the actual purpose for which the Seed Vault was designed (to protect against localized disasters such as the typhoon), judge it against that, and feel ourselves fortunate that the Seed Vault might double as an insurance policy in an even worse situation. There are no guarantees in life. Condemning this initiative, because it doesn't meet a literally impossible standard, really doesn't make much sense and says more about the cynicism and impotence of the critic than it says about this creative and positive effort to address to a real world problem.
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FYI. Monsanto has nothing to do with the Vault. Absolutely nothing. It's not theirs (it's Norway's). Monsanto didn't fund it. Their seeds are not being stored there, etc. This is a case of an irresponsible and inaccurate article being posted here, and then rumors taking off. People assume the worst. In this case, I am happy to report, they are wrong. See www.croptrust for more information, or google the Norwegian government's website on the Seed Vault.
Guess I might agree with you IF the most basic facts in the story reported here were correct. They're not. Monsanto has no involvement in the project. NONE AT ALL. They haven't funded it (not a penny). They don't own or control the seeds. None of the seeds there will be theirs (like a safety deposit box, they will remain the property of the depositor - in this case countries and international agricultural research institutes). There's no evidence that Monsanto even knows about the Seed Vault. It's a good initiative by the Norwegian government and the Global Crop Diversity Trust. Think the Norwegian government is in bed with Monsanto? They don't even allow Monsanto to sell GMO seeds in Norway. How odd that Norway would pay to construct the Vault in league with Monsanto to further eugenics (as the original article asserts). Clearly this is the case of a badly researched article starting a wildfire of rumors. It's a disservice to good people trying to do something positive. Check out www.croptrust.org for the facts.
The list of companies "participating" is completely wrong. The author simply failed to do his homework; I will leave the question of why to your imagination. I will simply assert, for example, that Monsanto has had absolutely nothing to do with the project. It isn't a funder. It wasn't their idea. They are not sending seeds, etc., etc. For some background on the project, check out www.croptrust.org or google the Norwegian government's website on it, or google the New Yorker's article, the BBC reports, etc. etc. The southern African countries are sending seeds. Think they would be involved with a eugenics initiative as the original article implies? Think Norway and the other Nordic countries would? This is a wonderful example of the danger in believing conspiracy theories without at least doing a little homework. This one doesn't pass the giggle test.
Thanks for your post. Indeed, the original "article," is in serious need of a fact checker. The companies cited as funders are not. And to think that an honest effort to provide a safety net to protect the biodiversity in existing seed banks (which is so essential to future agriculture) is somehow a plot by the Norwegian government and an endowment fund (with a Nobel Peace prize winner as vice-chair) is absurd. People should do a minimum of "due diligence" before posting slanderous comments. See the Norwegian government website, or go to www.croptrust.org for more info. Again, thanks for interjecting some sanity into the rumor mill.
In such situations one always deals with probabilities. No one is saying that the Seed Vault will offer an absolute guarantee in the event of an apocalyptic scenario. It will always be possible to imagine a scenario in which the Seed Vault won't save us...and then fault it or its sponsors for not having devised a perfect system. That's an easy game to play if one is so inclined. While the Seed Vault would likely provide some reasonable protection in such situations, it was actually designed for the purpose of ensuring against disasters that strike individual institutes, or countries. To me that's a good enough reason to move forward with it. Today, interestingly, I visited the Philippine national seed bank. A little over a year ago, it was inundated with about four feet of water and mud following a typhoon. Only a small percentage of its unique crop varieties (stored as seed) was safety-duplicated elsewhere. The result? Many varieties were lost. Forever. That means they are now extinct! If we had had the Seed Vault, and if the Philippines had sent a portion of each variety of seed there before the typhoon, then they could have recovered everything. No extinction. The cost to the Philippines of the storage in the Seed Vault? Zero. The cost of losing diversity that might be important to the future of agriculture in the Philippines and elsewhere? Who knows? But certainly large. So...let's not get completely stuck on the global catastrophe scenario. Let's look at the actual purpose for which the Seed Vault was designed (to protect against localized disasters such as the typhoon), judge it against that, and feel ourselves fortunate that the Seed Vault might double as an insurance policy in an even worse situation. There are no guarantees in life. Condemning this initiative, because it doesn't meet a literally impossible standard, really doesn't make much sense and says more about the cynicism and impotence of the critic than it says about this creative and positive effort to address to a real world problem.