The Arctic doomsday seed vault is supposed to ensure the future of humanity. It just flooded.

[applegrove]

The Arctic “doomsday” seed vault is supposed to ensure the future of humanity. It just flooded.

by Brian Resnick at Vox

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/5/19/15666206/arctic-seed-vault-flood

"SNIP..............

Deep underground in the far reaches of the arctic North, there’s a fortress that’s supposed to be one of humanity’s safeguards if we can’t feed ourselves in the future. It’s a vault containing 500 million seeds, representing 880,000 different crops, many of which can’t be found in fields today. It’s the ultimate failsafe if the world’s farms burn or diseases decimate our staples and we have to start over. The facility is supposed to keep these seeds safe for hundreds of years, without human oversight.

What the designers weren’t counting on so much: floods linked to climate change.

The Guardian is reporting that a flood due to melting arctic permafrost has breached the facility, creating an icy mess. The seeds are safe for now — they’re packaged in moisture-proof bags, and the flood didn’t reach the vault, just the entrance. Still, it caught the facility managers by surprise. The Guardian reports:

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.


................SNIP"

[luvMIdog]

1. that sucks

[malaise]

2. Read about this

Scary

[liberal N proud]

3. The human race is doing everything it can to destroy itself.

[Blue_true]

6. Look at the history of the Earth.

We are a transitional species on Earth, in the next mass extinction, we likely will perish.

[cstanleytech]

7. Maybe, maybe not. We are a pretty adaptable species so we might just survive the next mass

extinction though long term survival (1,000,000 or more years) is unlikely its not impossible.

[Blue_true]

20. Dinosaurs were on Earth around 60 million years before they perish.

While we are smarter and creative, we still haven't mastered the forces in existence in our Solar System and have barely started to learn more about the Galaxy that we exist in. Extinction periods have been estimated to last 25-30 million years, with massive secondary effects lasting millions of years longer. I don't see humans surviving alternating periods of extreme cold and heat that come with mass extinction, that requires protective structures that we don't have and would need to be able to master things like explosive volcanos popping up anywhere, massive tsunamis and a poisonous atmosphere, for millions of years. You may be right, we may become sophisticated enough to survive in a small number, but I can't wrap my head around that outcome.

[exboyfil]

4. Another take away from this

Is that a doomsday seed bank like this would never exist in a Libertarian state. No one would invest in it. For Constitutionalists no where in the Constitution is it authorized for the federal government to be part of it.

[7962]

10. Sure there is. I bring it up all the time to these "strict constitutionalists"

The general welfare clause. No federal court has struck down a spending program on the ground that it failed to promote the general welfare. However, federal spending programs have been struck down on other constitutional grounds.

[exboyfil]

11. The strict "Constitutionalists" I am referring to

feel those court decisions are in error. I agree with you on the general welfare clause. I point out to those folks also the Air Force is no where mentioned in the Constitution either.

[7962]

13. Now theres a good one I never thought of; the Air Force!! nt

[benld74]

5. I saw the Scorpion Team save it on CBS 3 weeks ago!!!

[spin]

8. The entrance flooded not the entire vault.

Last edited Sat May 20, 2017, 09:42 PM - Edit history (1)

The Doomsday Vault Isn't Flooded But We're All Still Going to Die

Today 2:07pm

It was a story that was too good to pass up. The Svalbard ‘doomsday’ seed vault had flooded because of global warming-induced high temperatures melting the surrounding permafrost. But according to one of the vault’s creators, the reports are pretty overblown and everything’s fine. Well, the vault’s fine. The apocalypse is still ticking along nicely.

***snip***

Popular Science spoke with Cary Fowler, one of the creators of the vault to see just how serious the situation really is. “Flooding is probably not quite the right word to use in this case,” he told them. According to Fowler, a little bit of water has made its way into the entrance every year. Though he wasn’t present at the vault when the ‘flooding’ occurred this year, he insists that it’s a pretty routine occurrence.

“The tunnel was never meant to be water tight at the front, because we didn’t think we would need that,” he tells Pop Sci. Basically, there’s a 100-meter tunnel that serves as a walkway into the mountain and it goes downhill. Before you reach the vault doors, the ground shifts uphill. This little area allows water to collect and two pumps can evacuate it. Hege Njaa Aschim, a Norwegian government official, told the Guardian, “A lot of water went into the start of the tunnel and then it froze to ice, so it was like a glacier when you went in.” And well, that’s not really a crisis. In fact, according to Fowler, if the water were to make it all the way uphill it would get hit with temperatures around minus 18 degrees celcius, freeze, and create a new barrier.

***snip***

Fowler insists that based on his team’s studies, if all the world’s ice melted, and the world’s biggest tsunami occurred in front of the vault it would still be sitting around five to seven stories above the action. And we, of course, would probably be dead.

http://gizmodo.com/the-doomsday-vault-isnt-flooded-but-were-all-still-goin-1795400407

[ProudLib72]

12. Can you imagine if tRump contractors had done the work?

Don't did too deep! I don't want to pay for extra digging.

You want it to go uphill before the entrance? No! Going uphill is for losers (and I won't pay for it).

You want to put the seeds in airtight bags? Forget it! I'll pay for Ziploc baggies. Those are good enough.

[spin]

14. True but the vault would have been completed under budget...

and ahead of schedule. Plus it would have been "yuge."

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. More here

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127110482

[WestCoastDem42]

15. This is really bad news.

I am so bummed about this I can even explain. Having the vault flood with all its heritage seeds stored there is really a blow to man-kind. I hope they will be able to salvage and recover from this!

[Statistical]

18. No seeds were damaged.

It only flooded the entranceway. They are going to make the outerdoor waterproof to handle floods in the future.

[Flaleftist]

16. That sounds like a fairly import project.

I wonder why they don't have two locations in different parts of the world.

[mopinko]

19. there are other, smaller seed banks.

this is sort of the back up to the back up. several countries have extensive banks, including us.

[NoMoreRepugs]

17. But but but...its a Chinese hoax isn't it?