Norwegian seed (this world was blown)
New Scientist News reports the Norwegian government is building a Noah’s Ark of sorts for seeds on an Arctic island. The plan is to have seed samples for all the world’s crops. In the event of a global catastrophe, these seeds could be used to reestablish humanity’s agricultural base.
This seems like a wise contingency plan, but I do see a few problems with it. From the description:
The $3 million vault will be built deep inside a sandstone mountain lined with permafrost on the Norwegian Arctic island of Spitsbergen. The vault will have metre-thick walls of reinforced concrete and will be protected behind two airlocks and high-security blast-proof doors. It will not be permanently manned, but “the mountains are patrolled by polar bears”, says Fowler.
So a ragtag band of catastrophe survivors will have to make it to Norway, build a boat, get past postapocalyptic polar bears, and somehow open up this vault. And if they succeed, they’re still a growing season away from their first meal! A noble effort, but the corpses of the dead are still going to be the most plentiful food source when the world goes boom.
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