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<P class=EC_EC_EC_style3 align=left><FONT color=#808080>Vladimir Us</FONT></P>
<P class=EC_EC_EC_style3 align=left><FONT color=#808080>artist & curator</FONT></P>
<P class=EC_EC_EC_style3 align=left><FONT color=#808080><A href="http://www.oberliht.org.md/" target=_blank>http://www.oberliht.org.md</A></FONT></P><BR><BR>> From: savenodesign-request@greenpeppermagazine.org<BR>> Subject: SaveNoDesign Digest, Vol 11, Issue 15<BR>> To: savenodesign@greenpeppermagazine.org<BR>> Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:00:05 +0100<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Message: 2<BR>> Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:50:22 +0100<BR>> From: "Alex Foti" <alex.foti@gmail.com><BR>> Subject: [savenodesign] arctic vault to save world's seeds<BR>> To: savenodesign@greenpeppermagazine.org<BR>> <BR>> Arctic vault to safeguard world's seeds<BR>> <BR>> By Fiona Harvey in Svalbard<BR>> <BR>> Published: February 26 2008 01:36 | Last updated: February 26 2008 01:36<BR>> <BR>> The door will open on Tuesday on an Arctic "doomsday" vault that will<BR>> safeguard seed samples from the world's most important food crops<BR>> against possible disaster, in scenarios from drastic climate change to<BR>> nuclear war.<BR>> <BR>> The first seeds ? of rice plants ? are to be delivered this morning to<BR>> the Svalbard global seed vault, dug out of a snow-covered island 800<BR>> miles (1,280km) from the North Pole. They will be kept at 18?C below<BR>> freezing. The intention is to preserve hundreds of millions of seeds<BR>> from varieties of nearly 100 of the world's main crops.<BR>> <BR>> "It's an insurance policy," said Cary Fowler, executive director of<BR>> the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which built the vault with $8m<BR>> (?5.4m, ?4.1m) from the Norwegian government.<BR>> <BR>> In the event of a sudden disaster such as a nuclear attack or an<BR>> asteroid strike, the seed bank would hold the means to restock the<BR>> Earth's agriculture.<BR>> <BR>> It would also protect against the much more likely ? some scientists<BR>> would even say inevitable ? effects of global warming by providing<BR>> seeds for researchers to breed new crops that can to cope with a<BR>> changing ?climate.<BR>> <BR>> Mr Fowler explained: "We are losing crop varieties and crop diversity<BR>> all over the place ... [even as] climate change is affecting the way<BR>> some crops grow."<BR>> <BR>> He pointed to varieties of rice sensitive to temperature rises much<BR>> smaller than those forecasted by climatologists as the result of<BR>> global warming: if exposed to a temperature rise of 1?C during a<BR>> crucial period of growth, the crop's yield is cut by one-tenth.<BR>> <BR>> If agricultural scientists could find strains of rice that were able<BR>> to withstand higher temperatures, they could breed varieties to<BR>> maintain yields.<BR>> <BR>> At present, there is no single seed repository. Collections are<BR>> maintained haphazardly worldwide, meaning samples are lost. Sometimes<BR>> samples of potentially important varieties of plants, along with the<BR>> genes that could have conferred benefits on new plants, become<BR>> extinct.<BR>> <BR>> Seeds from the 1.5m crop varieties known to be in the world's<BR>> collections will be sent to Svalbard, which will form the repository<BR>> of last resort, dispensing seeds for crop varieties to be regrown only<BR>> when all other known examples are gone.<BR>> <BR>> Tuesday's delivery of seeds will be attended by Jos? Manuel Barroso,<BR>> the president of the European Commission, and Jens Stoltenberg, the<BR>> prime minister of Norway.<BR>> <BR>> The Global Crop Diversity Trust has raised $100m of the endowment of<BR>> about $300m needed for the upkeep of the vault and the process of<BR>> collecting and experimenting on seeds.<BR>> <BR>> Samples will be kept in watertight foil packets behind blastproof<BR>> doors and concrete walls a metre thick. The vault's remote location ?<BR>> 60m under the permafrost of the island of Spitsbergen, in the<BR>> archipelago of Svalbard, one of the most northerly points of land on<BR>> Earth ? is intended to keep the seeds at the low temperatures required<BR>> while also safe from intruders.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> _______________________________________________<BR>> SaveNoDesign mailing list<BR>> SaveNoDesign@greenpeppermagazine.org<BR>> http://greenpeppermagazine.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/savenodesign<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> End of SaveNoDesign Digest, Vol 11, Issue 15<BR>> ********************************************<BR><br /><hr />Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! <a href='http://clk.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/' target='_new'>MSN Messenger</a></body>
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