Tuesday, July 30, 2013

A Little Good News


Going on the glass is half full idea here.


Anyone with a basic understanding about our planet knows that it is being wracked with ever increasing natural calamities brought on by changing climates. Shifting weather patterns, increasing ocean temperatures and acidity levels, rapid sea level rise, famine, and drought are but a few of the consequences we face with the poor of the world taking the brunt of these environmental uncertainties.

The overwhelming consensus by climate scientists is that the human burning of hydrocarbons such as coal, oil, and natural gas is responsible for these rapid and dangerous changes in overall global environment. Add to that unchecked deforestation and loss of animal habitats, pollution from other sources, and runaway human population growth you have a near perfect storm not only threatening the ability of the planet to maintain viable ecosystems but eventually the sustainability of human civilization itself.     

To those wallowing in willful ignorance and certain special interest groups that want to protect their money and power all the evidence that the planet is in trouble is to them either overblown or part of some evil socialistic conspiracy. Even more worrisome, to the religiously deranged apocalyptic climate degradation is something to be welcomed since it is one of the signs that the Rapture is close at hand. Humanity’s others sins such as greed, war, and apathy only aid in painting an even darker picture of the future.

The last thing I want to do is seem childishly optimistic in the face of some gigantic problems but I did learn about a project that restored a little bit of my faith that humans can overcome their barbaric tendencies. A great deal of evolution works on the concept of competition and survival of the fittest and humans have shown themselves adept at cutthroat behavior. But another facet of evolution involves cooperation and the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership is one of the best examples of people from around the world working together to save as much of the Earth’s plants as possible.






From Wikipedia:

In collaboration with other biodiversity projects around the world expeditions are sent to collect seeds from dryland plants.Where possible, collections are kept in the country of origin with duplicates being sent to the Millennium Seed Bank Project for storage. Major partnerships exist on all the continents, enabling the countries involved to meet international objectives such as the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation and the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations Environment Programme.


In April 2007, it banked its billionth seed, the Oxytenanthera abyssinica, a type of African bamboo. In October 2009, it reached its 10% goal of banking all the world's wild plant species by adding Musa itinerans, a wild banana, to its seed vault. As estimates for the number of seed bearing plant species have increased however, the current 31,880 species that have been banked represent 9.22% of the global total.


It would nice to hope that this type of endeavor could lead to even more international cooperation in other areas where it is desperately needed. Unfortunately, for all of us, that is way too much to hope for right now. But times change and circumstances have a way of forcing species to adapt quickly or go extinct. I just hope we realize what we need to do in time.



 

10 comments:

Slick said...

That is good news! Maybe "international cooperation" on other things will come with baby steps.

Pixel Peeper said...

This sounds like a good start. Next step: we need to make sure bees are not going extinct.

Mr. Charleston said...

This is a pretty cool thing. Been around for awhile and I'm surprised they've only stored 39,000 or so varieties of seed. Of course, every other day we read about a heretofore unknown species of something or other being discovered in the jungle or the bottom of the ocean, the most recent being a mammal, so who knows how many of anything there are except humans. We've got a pretty good count on that and it ain't pretty.

Akelamalu said...

Well at least someone is doing something. I do think that everything that is going on climate wise is just a natural occurrence though, the Earth has gone through many changes in it's life and this is just another one. I doubt there is much any of us can do to stop it.

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

My employment situation forced me to "see the light" and become a republican. Now when the river I work next to freakishly rises and falls in ways it didn't until 5 years ago I blame natural occurrences.

Darn that nature and God testing our faith!

Susan Flett Swiderski said...

You're right; this is a fantastic (and ambitious) project. I believe it's well within mankind's ability to solve most of the problems in the world if we work together instead of acting like competitors.

lime said...

even better news is no monsanto seeds in there.

Life As I Know It Now said...

Great! No monsanto! No monsanto! No monsanto!

Red Nomad OZ said...

It's SUCH a great idea you'd wonder why the climate change influencers haven't immediately jumped on the bandwagon!! I suspect protection of interests and profiteering actually cuts both ways, unpalatable as that may seem ...

Randal Graves said...

When the radioactive super bugs start eating your hippie crops, you'll wish they had been genetically modified!