2008 Woodie Awards
Agricultural safe-guards crucial based on societal trends
Creel O'Neil
Issue date: 3/11/08 Section: OpEd Page
There weren't too many people out for Friday night's snowstorm. However, I've been in a few blizzards and one of the first things you bring with you is a good pair of ski goggles. Apparently, some people can't appreciate the fact that with eye protection in a snowstorm, you don't have to walk around with your face in your chest-I surmise that they also can't appreciate the fact that you can actually see with them on. I came across this realization when an individual trudging around with his head in his chest, hands around his face and unable to walk a straight line due to the blinding wind and snow called me a profane name for wearing goggles that allowed me to do the polar opposite of what he was doing. At that moment a symphony of synapses began to fire bringing together a plethora problems, situations, people, events and happenings that culminated in my relation of this incident to the grander problem of us actually needing a doomsday vault.
A far stretch it may seem, but just hear me out. For those of you who don't know what the doomsday vault is, the Norwegian government and a group called the Global Crop Diversity Trust have taken it upon themselves to build a secure facility near the Arctic Circle. This vault, secured safely within a frozen mountain, will house two million types of seeds in order to help us replant and rebuild the planet's ecosystem in order to support human life in the event of climate change. The food we consume coming from crops are a result of 10,000 years of human driven cultivation and plant breeding by our species to create a natural food base that can support the unbelievable size of the human race. Climate change will turn all of that on its head-reducing the ability for food production drastically and to dangerously low levels. Areas of the planet that were once suitable for farming, the basis off all the mass-produced food we eat, will no longer suffice. Not to mention that the change will cause a massive extinction of many plant and animal species. The vault, however, is not only designed for that, but was conceived to protect humans in case we destroy the life-giving capability of our planet. As a result, the vault could withstand the thralls of a human-made catastrophe as well.
A far stretch it may seem, but just hear me out. For those of you who don't know what the doomsday vault is, the Norwegian government and a group called the Global Crop Diversity Trust have taken it upon themselves to build a secure facility near the Arctic Circle. This vault, secured safely within a frozen mountain, will house two million types of seeds in order to help us replant and rebuild the planet's ecosystem in order to support human life in the event of climate change. The food we consume coming from crops are a result of 10,000 years of human driven cultivation and plant breeding by our species to create a natural food base that can support the unbelievable size of the human race. Climate change will turn all of that on its head-reducing the ability for food production drastically and to dangerously low levels. Areas of the planet that were once suitable for farming, the basis off all the mass-produced food we eat, will no longer suffice. Not to mention that the change will cause a massive extinction of many plant and animal species. The vault, however, is not only designed for that, but was conceived to protect humans in case we destroy the life-giving capability of our planet. As a result, the vault could withstand the thralls of a human-made catastrophe as well.
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