UN chief Ban Ki-moon visited Wednesday a vault carved into the Arctic permafrost, filled with samples of the world’s most important seeds in case food crops are wiped out by a catastrophe.”The world faces many daunting challenges today, one of the greatest of which is how to feed a growing population in the context of climate change,” a bundled-up Ban told reporters after he toured the site in the Svalbard archipelago some 1,200 kilometres (745 miles) from the North Pole.

“The seeds stored here in Svalbard will help us do just that. Sustainable food production may not begin in this cold Arctic environment, but it does begin by conserving crop diversity,” he said.

Aimed at safeguarding biodiversity in the face of climate change, wars and other natural and man-made disasters, the seed bank has the capacity to hold up to 4.5 million batches of seeds, or twice the number of crop varieties believed to exist in the world today.

The vault was inaugurated in February 2008, and so far some 25 international and national institutes from 22 countries have deposited some 400,000 batches, according to the Norwegian government.
Overlooking a fjord, the vault forms a long trident-shaped tunnel bored deep into the Svalbard sandstone and limestone.

Metal shelves lining three cold chambers will eventually be stacked with airtight bags filled with seed samples.

After passing through an airlock designed to keep temperatures inside the main vault at minus 18 degrees Celsius (minus 0.4 Fahrenheit), Ban looked on with interest as he was shown plastic boxes filled with samples.

“This site, collated by all the countries, is really creative. I’m inspired by this vision to sustain the world in the future,” he said.

He seemed also taken with the chilly temperature in the vault.

“It’s very cold, even colder than the Arctic. My lips are frozen.”

The UN secretary general is visiting the Arctic to see first-hand the effects of global warming ahead of key international climate talks in Copenhagen in December.

On Tuesday, he visited the Ny-Aalesund climate change research station in Svalbard and saw the polar ice rim aboard a Norwegian coast guard vessel, saying he was “very much alarmed” by the rapid rate of melting ice.

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“Doomsday” Seed Vault Opens in Norway

By Kingdom Engineers

Doomsday Seed Vault
I found this article to be a very interesting topic as we know that according to scripture, what the Bible calls “Daniel’s 70th Week” (a.k.a., The Tribulation, The Great Tribulation (2nd half), Time of Jacob’s Trouble, The Day of the Lord) is rapidly approaching. There will not only be nuclear warfare in the coming months, years; but there will also be a comet or asteroid striking the earth as well.

I personally believe, and hold the interpretation of a Futurist, that there will be two occurrences, one from Rev 6:12-17 and another from Rev 8:10-11 (The bible even gives this second one a name; “wormwood“, if that is indeed what it is referring to… you decide.)

Our very own Bill Gates, along with the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto Corporation, Syngenta Foundation and the Government of Norway, among others, in what is called the ‘doomsday seed bank.’ Even though there are several seed banks currently in existence; this one is the backup to all of the others.

Officially the project is named the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, part of the Svalbard island group.

LONGYEARBYEN, Norway (CNN) – Thu February 28, 2008 — A vast underground vault storing millions of seeds from around the world is scheduled to open this week in a mountain on a remote island near the Arctic Ocean.

Dubbed the “Doomsday Vault,” the seed bank is considered the ultimate safety net for the world’s seed collections, protecting them from a wide range of threats including war, natural disasters, lack of funding or simply poor agricultural management.

The Norwegian government paid to build the vault in a mountainside near Longyearbyen, in the remote Svalbard islands between Norway and the North Pole. Building began last year, and the vault is scheduled to open officially Tuesday.

Doomsday Seed Vault

I found this article to be a very interesting topic as we know that according to scripture, what the Bible calls “Daniel’s 70th Week” (a.k.a., The Tribulation, The Great Tribulation (2nd half), Time of Jacob’s Trouble, The Day of the Lord) is rapidly approaching. There will not only be nuclear warfare in the coming months, years; but there will also be a comet or asteroid striking the earth as well.

I personally believe, and hold the interpretation of a Futurist, that there will be two occurrences, one from Rev 6:12-17 and another from Rev 8:10-11 (The bible even gives this second one a name; “wormwood“, if that is indeed what it is referring to… you decide.)

Our very own Bill Gates, along with the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto Corporation, Syngenta Foundation and the Government of Norway, among others, in what is called the ‘doomsday seed bank.’ Even though there are several seed banks currently in existence; this one is the backup to all of the others.

Officially the project is named the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, part of the Svalbard island group.

LONGYEARBYEN, Norway (CNN) – Thu February 28, 2008 — A vast underground vault storing millions of seeds from around the world is scheduled to open this week in a mountain on a remote island near the Arctic Ocean.

Dubbed the “Doomsday Vault,” the seed bank is considered the ultimate safety net for the world’s seed collections, protecting them from a wide range of threats including war, natural disasters, lack of funding or simply poor agricultural management.

The Norwegian government paid to build the vault in a mountainside near Longyearbyen, in the remote Svalbard islands between Norway and the North Pole. Building began last year, and the vault is scheduled to open officially Tuesday.

Doomsday Seed Vault

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, as it is officially known, can hold as many as 4.5 million seed samples and will eventually house almost every variety of most important food crops in the world, according to the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which is paying to collect and maintain the seeds.

The United Nations founded the trust in 2004 to support the long-term conservation of crop diversity, and countries and foundations provide the funding.

“The seed vault is the perfect place for keeping seeds safe for centuries,” said Cary Fowler, executive director of the trust. “At these temperatures, seeds for important crops like wheat, barley and peas can last for up to 10,000 years.”

The vault’s location deep inside a mountain in the frozen north ensures the seeds can be stored safely no matter what happens outside.

“We believe the design of the facility will ensure that the seeds will stay well-preserved even if such forces as global warming raise temperatures outside the facility,” said Magnus Bredeli Tveiten, project manager for the Norwegian government.

by pakalert

Doomsday Seed Vault
I found this article to be a very interesting topic as we know that according to scripture, what the Bible calls “Daniel’s 70th Week” (a.k.a., The Tribulation, The Great Tribulation (2nd half), Time of Jacob’s Trouble, The Day of the Lord) is rapidly approaching. There will not only be nuclear warfare in the coming months, years; but there will also be a comet or asteroid striking the earth as well.

I personally believe, and hold the interpretation of a Futurist, that there will be two occurrences, one from Rev 6:12-17 and another from Rev 8:10-11 (The bible even gives this second one a name; “wormwood“, if that is indeed what it is referring to… you decide.)

Our very own Bill Gates, along with the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto Corporation, Syngenta Foundation and the Government of Norway, among others, in what is called the ‘doomsday seed bank.’ Even though there are several seed banks currently in existence; this one is the backup to all of the others.

Officially the project is named the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, part of the Svalbard island group.

LONGYEARBYEN, Norway (CNN) – Thu February 28, 2008 — A vast underground vault storing millions of seeds from around the world is scheduled to open this week in a mountain on a remote island near the Arctic Ocean.

Dubbed the “Doomsday Vault,” the seed bank is considered the ultimate safety net for the world’s seed collections, protecting them from a wide range of threats including war, natural disasters, lack of funding or simply poor agricultural management.

The Norwegian government paid to build the vault in a mountainside near Longyearbyen, in the remote Svalbard islands between Norway and the North Pole. Building began last year, and the vault is scheduled to open officially Tuesday.

Doomsday Seed Vault

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, as it is officially known, can hold as many as 4.5 million seed samples and will eventually house almost every variety of most important food crops in the world, according to the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which is paying to collect and maintain the seeds.

The United Nations founded the trust in 2004 to support the long-term conservation of crop diversity, and countries and foundations provide the funding.

“The seed vault is the perfect place for keeping seeds safe for centuries,” said Cary Fowler, executive director of the trust. “At these temperatures, seeds for important crops like wheat, barley and peas can last for up to 10,000 years.”

The vault’s location deep inside a mountain in the frozen north ensures the seeds can be stored safely no matter what happens outside.

“We believe the design of the facility will ensure that the seeds will stay well-preserved even if such forces as global warming raise temperatures outside the facility,” said Magnus Bredeli Tveiten, project manager for the Norwegian government.

Doomsday Seed Vault InteriorThe vault sits at the end of a 120-meter (131-yard) tunnel blasted inside the mountain. Workers used a refrigeration system to bring the vault to -18 degrees Celsius (just below 0 degrees Fahrenheit), and a smaller refrigeration system plus the area’s natural permafrost and the mountain’s thick rock will keep the vault at least -4 C (25 F).

The vault at Svalbard is similar to an existing seed bank in Sussex, England, about an hour outside London. The British vault, called the Millennium Seed Bank, is part of an scientific project that works with wild plants, as opposed to the seeds of crops.

Paul Smith, the leader of the Millennium Seed Bank project, said preserving the seeds of wild plants is just as important as preserving the seeds of vital crops.

“We must give ourselves every option in the future to use the whole array of plant diversity that is available to us,” Smith told CNN.

The idea for the Arctic seed bank dates to the 1980s but only became a possibility after the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources came into force in 2004, the Norwegian government said. The treaty provided an international framework for conserving and accessing crop diversity.

Doomsday Seed Vault Svalbard is designed to store duplicates of seeds from seed collections around the world.

Watch a tour of the frigid vault (1 Min 46 sec)

CNN’s Becky Anderson contributed to this report. See the original article


Tour The Greenbrier Bunker

During the Cold War the United States government maintained a top-secret underground bunker in the mountains of West Virginia. Built under The Greenbrier, a luxurious Southern resort, the facility was designed to house the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate in case of nuclear attack. Compromised by an investigative reporter in 1993, the bunker is now open to the public. With the code name “Project Greek Island”, it remains a sobering reminder of how America lived with and prepared for the possibility of a Soviet nuclear attack. You can enter the bunker or you can read an interview with Fritz Bugas, former on-site Superintendent of the Greenbrier bunker.

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