Preserving The Seeds of Change

Earth Change Report - Issue 023 Jan 05 2008

It being the new year, a year in which we can expect some abrupt earth changes - maybe the day after tomorrow even - how about a trip in a Lear jet to a little known place called Longyearbyen?

Ego being the biggest thing about a reporter’s carry-on baggage you are sure you’ll be quite at home in a Lear Jet (pictures courtesy of learjetsforsale.net).

But you have to at least pretend independence so you say to Seattle Bill "no strings attached, okay?" and he says "of course not...and by the way I have some tickets for you for the next Seahawks game."

You think the Seahawks suck, but you pocket the tickets (you can sell them to Clark or Lois back in the office)and gladly accept the jet trip offer. You'll be up up and away at the crack of midnight.

Happily there has been no two-hour wait and five minute search before boarding. Your plane has been cleared for take-off in a heartbeat.

The pilot apparently has aircraft carrier history or maybe he's a former crop duster. Either way he's an original jet jockey. He guns the twin Pratt and Whitney turbofan engines to their combined 9200lbs of thrust, holds the brakes till the engines redline, and in much less than the specified 1.6 miles of takeoff distance, you’re in the air and heading for the far north east.

The galley (wet bar) gets your attention for starters.

Seattle Bill is there already, offering you and your two fellow passengers a drink. One of them is a Public Relations specialist and the other is another reporter – National Geographic no less.

As the Pratt and Whitneys ease back to high altitude cruising speed Seattle Bill slides a slim table out of the wall and pops a Jim Beam and Coke in front of you. (How did he know that?)

Then he grins and throws a couple of bags of peanuts – which you and your National Geographic fellow traveler catch rather deftly. You have had long experience of being fed this way. Be it peanuts, or the crumbs of a story, you’re always pretending gratitude for small mercies.

You laugh and smile and chat. But in the back of your mind, you have chalked up a special paragraph for your upcoming story. It’ll be a payback for having peanuts thrown in your face.

You can imagine that if you were high enough (say at maximum 60XR altitude of 51,000 ft) you might be able to see the arctic ocean – a thought which takes your mind to a fascinating graphic in The New York Times.

It’s an animated illustration of how the arctic sea ice has been melting back season after season – all part of the earth changes that you as a reporter are focused on.

But today, your real target is Longyearbyen, an isolated settlement on the island of Spitsbergen in Norway's Svalbard archipelago.

Are they radar? Missile silos? Bunkers of some sort? Maybe air vents for something under the ground?

As the plane makes a perfect crop duster touchdown a few feet above sea level you wonder whether this place will survive the rising oceans that so many scientists are warning us of.

Hopefully it’ll survive long enough so you can get out of here.

But why are you here?

And what has this trip got to do with Earth Changes?

Well, it has millions of things to do with Earth Changes.

Those millions of things being millions of seeds that are to be stored in what some call the "Doomsday Seed Vault." It's a gene bank.

Earth Change Report has its foundation in the documentary, "Contact Has Begun" - a professional Broadcast Quality DVD directed by Earth Change Report editor Michael Knight.

"Contact Has Begun" reveals not just the surprising and true story of James Gilliland's contacts with off world and benevolent civilizations - but also includes remarkable information about the earth changes which we are now experiencing.

If you are at all interested in surviving the inevitable range of disasters (and we do not say that to scare you - just to remind you that scientists are openly predicting every calamity you can imagine) then this DVD is ahead of its time - but just in time.

The "Doomsday" vault has been constructed in a mountainside near the town of Longyearbyen and its role, we are told, is to “put an end to extinction of agricultural crops.”

Who is telling us such goods news?

The Trust is said to be the “leading force” behind the project, which is due to start storing seeds next month (February 2008).

But can we trust a Trust to give us news we can trust?

On the face of it, yes. Especially considering that Fowler has a sincere concern (as quoted here), which is that "We've seen that climate change is happening now…and we are going to need genebanks to cope with that. Crop diversity is essential for agriculture to adapt to changing conditions and we should therefore be bringing more material into safe-keeping."

But there’s a second face to consider, or at least ask questions about.

Who is putting up the money?

And why?

Why would a Trust be set up to build a multi-million dollar project of this sort in one of the most remote places on the planet? Especially a trust staffed by specialists in the genetic modification of plants.

Why are they on the one hand storing millions of unmodified seeds - and on the other, flooding the world with manipulated strains that have in turn pollinated and altered the very seeds they now say they wish to preserve in their pristine state?

What do they know about “the extinction of agricultural crops?” What do they know about gene banks - who started them - and why?

More importantly, what does this have to do with Earth Changes and how they will affect you - subscribers to Earth Change Report -(which is the only reason any story qualifies for space in this newsletter)?

"...the highest point of Diego Garcia, an atoll in the southern Indian Ocean that serves as a major logistics hub for U.S. and British forces in the Middle East, is only a few feet above sea level.

"As sea level rises, facilities there will be lost or will have to relocated..."

From a Generals Report prepared for the US Center for Naval Analyses.(The CNA Corporation) Pic courtesy Google Earth)

You don't have to be using a laptop in the world's fastest and highest flying mid size jet to use the Internet and discover that National Geographic loves this story.

It reports Fowler as saying "the mission is crucial because the stored seeds will provide researchers with the raw genetic materials needed to adapt the global food supply to survive climate change as well as water and energy shortages."

Oh! Yes? And?

All very well and good. Plausible.

So why is your journalistic nose twitching here?

What do these Trusts and foundations that have poured millions of dollars into this facility know that you don’t know?

Yes, they are telling us what we might see as good news. But what’s on Page Two?

We follow another link and discover a preview for a new book by William Engdahl under the title "Seeds of Destruction."

What we read chills us a lot more than the cold winter air of Longyearbyen.

It appears, according to Engdahl, that …well…follow the link and see for yourself.

Having done that, and now being aware that there are some huge multinationals that are involved in this seed preservation project – while at the same time cornering the market on hybrids of their own invention – we wonder again why they would need to create such a fortress to protect seeds.

Are seeds more important than people?

We have read Seeds of Destruction (buy it here) and discovered with some horror that genetically modified plants can cause diseases and malformations – even sterility - and yet these very seeds are becoming the future of no-choice, rather than those which Nature has perfected over millennia.

So why would those whose very livelihood today depends on making natural seeds disappear from the food chain, want to build a Doomsday vault?

Your jet jock has done his crop duster shortass landing.

You have debarked into the hubbub of a gathering of dignitaries jabbering in Norwegian. One of them, an older man with a military bearing but with a pensive frown fixed to his head sidles through the crowd.

He seems to deliberately seek you out - but he doesn't stop as he passes by. He simply keeps moving and yet you feel his hand briefly pass over your jacket pocket.

He melts into the crowd that is heading for the "escalator down" sign (in several languages). You and your group follow along and you take advantage of the seeming confusion to pull a small card from your pocket.

On it is written a simple Internet URL. And this is where you will discover "Deep Throat's" story.

It turns out that he too is aware of the forecast perils associated with Planet X and 2012 - and so too is the government he is part of. The same government that has contributed, with others, to the financing and hosting and construction of this seed vault.

(We need not be specific about our journey beyond the down escalator except to say that we went separate ways and all we personally saw was a concrete door or two and some storage facilities for seeds. So we pick up our story as we once again find ourselves at 50,000 feet, heading home - and pondering).

You plug in to the Internet. Check Deep Throat's URL. Gag and reach for the Jim Beam bottle. Then put it aside, untouched, and start thinking very clearly.

Why have you - and that National Geographic person - been invited on this very expensive junket? Well, okay, you know National Geographic has a membership of 8 million and reaches 360 million people a month through its various outlets.

Given the fact that these facilities must have been under construction for decades, you find yourself wondering is it possible that all this was built as the result of some crystal ball gazing?

Do 'they' also know that earth changes, water shortages, climate variations, droughts, fires and earthquakes must all be accounted for as potential destructive forces?

Guaranteed.

National Geographic's motto is "To increase and diffuse geographic knowledge while promoting the conservation of the world's cultural, historical, and natural resources."

A seed vault story fits perfectly in that context. But why don't their reporters get on to the "preservation of humans" side of the equation?

They are asking for DNA swabs....

Your head spins with a kaleidoscope of words...GM seeds...doomsday vault...preservation...genetic engineering...Planet X...2012...Noah's ark...DNA swabs...but your mind refuses to connect the dots.

You turn to Seattle Bill and you say "y'know, I think the Seahawks just might win..."

He smiles and offers you a bag of cashews. You decide to drop the peanuts payback paragraph (and all alliteration from future stories).

As the lights of Seattle - still thankfully above the waters of the rising ocean - come into view, a fleeting thought raises a cold smile.

They might have crystal balls. But Nature itself is likely to shatter them.

Footnote:-

It would be very prudent to find a source of non-hybrid seeds before they all disappear.

Start a fetish – seed collecting. All sorts of seeds. Big ones small ones little ones large ones. Seeds seeds seeds.

Make this an ongoing critical part of your own forward planning in the expectation that if you preserve seeds, natural seeds, then as the tough times pass, Nature – you trust – will preserve you.

Which means we too will be seeds for a future time.

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If you have Outlook/Express click here to send an email to someone you know telling them what an interesting read you've found.

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First Feedback (11.30pm Jan 05 08):-

Hi Michael,

Wonderful issue of Earth Change Report.

Have seen most of the links so far, and links from those links.

Here is one to read,(click here) if you have not already seen it.

Great solution orientation for the days ... regarding food, seeds and building sustainable communities.

Global sustainability is do-able in 2 years if we get off our self-centered, self-absorbed, spoiled little duffs. This extended community of 72 villages in India did it.

Great site,

Peace and Freedom for All,

Marilyn.

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Update 11.30am Jan 6 08:-

And then there was this, from Paul - on behalf of the sheepwalkers.

Sir:

"You, and most of your ilk, belong in a large rubber room. Every other mammal living on this planet, has adapted itself to the natural environment, and most species do not require any 'entertainment devices,' nor do they indulge in the panic ridden mental stimulations, that human beings seem to enjoy with such bizzar relish. Try simplifing your life somewhat. Take a cold shower. Maybe take up gardening. Get real."

"Did you mean these vents ????? on top of a mountain????"

The answer is "yes. And they look pretty real to me."

You can download Google Earth here.

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And this - from JM

"Great article. I passed it on to my lists.

"You know, this really makes me even more willing to try starting an 'intentional community' with a group of like minded people to buy land, live and work it together. Not huge communities necessarily, but even small groups of 2-3 households each.

"Interesting that you wrote this just as I am studying everything and anything I can find on organic gardening and propagation techniques and what various plants can be used for.

"My wife and I plan on taking some nature hikes to get samples of local plant life in spring. I also started ordering every free seed catalog I can find online and have placed some orders.

"Our laundry room and every window is now filled with plants and trees we've started from seed. We will be investing in a greenhouse this spring/summer, finances permitting.

"I suggest starting a plant diary of everything that grows wild and what has been planted, how well it did, etc. Then grow what works best in your area.

"Trial and error are a gardener's best tools of learning. Plants that die provide you with valuable information and a chance to try something new."

(Note: Additional info about the various plants and results JM has had will be posted in the soon-to-be-open Private Earth Change Forum. It is a forum where like-minded people can discuss the many issues related to Earth Changes and common sense preparations in advance of such events).

Ed. Note:

Earth Change Report is not the only source of information about what is happening in our wonderful world.

Many scientists - thousands - are making breakthrough discoveries every day.

Unfortunately, a great deal of such news gets little attention from the mainstream media.

However, with the advent of the Internet, those who have a mind to dig a little deeper than the football results can find and disseminate this important information to those who are ready to go beyond the sheep pen....

One newsletter that can be highly recommended is put out weekly by Steve Klein (we have both been RSE students for many years and have learned much about earth changes as a result). He calls his newsletter "Kleiner's Korner."

Wisely, he insists that it is an information resource - but it is up to subscribers to determine what they choose to accept (a position which is also held by Earth Change Report)Always do your own research, and make up your own mind....).

You can visit Kleiner's Korner here - or click on the following image.