The Arctic “doomsday” seed vault is supposed to ensure our future. Its architects are worried about climate change. [BE20]

blog #20

The Arctic “doomsday” seed vault is supposed to ensure our future. Its architects are worried about climate change. 

by: Brian Resnick

May 22, 2017

Vox

The flood at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, caused by rain and melting permafrost, only permeated into the area of the tunnel leading to the seed vault. While this intrusion caused quite a stir, and understandably so as the vault stores the seeds of 930,000 different crops, vault officials are committed to building even better defenses for the vault. This vault was intended to protect humanity against the doomsday affects of climate change, for if all the world's farms burn or diseases destroy annual crop yields, the vault will keep these seeds safe for hundreds of years. However, it may be climate change which causes this failsafe to fail. After all, if not enough is done to challenge global warming in the near future, the melting of permafrost within this tundra will only continue to worsen.