Tag Archives: climate change
IS ‘REOPENED’ SEED VAULT NOW READY FOR DOOMSDAY? Ribbon-cutting, new deposits celebrate completion of costly repairs after climate change exposes flaws in original design
OK, now it’s ready for Armageddon, even if there’s a heavy rainstorm.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on Monday was both a celebration and a remarkable statement of irony, since the world-renowned facility officially opened more than 11 years ago. But the so-called ultimate safeguard for the planet’s crops didn’t even make it through its first decade before major design flaws were exposed by climate change impacts such as thawing permafrost and unseasonably heavy rain, resulting in lengthy repairs costing nearly triple the vault’s original construction price.
‘WE KNOW MORE THAN OUR PARENTS’: Youths at world’s northernmost climate strike say they’re living what older people have failed to learn
Lina Engås Vikaune, 11, is growing up in consistently warmer temperatures where winters keep arriving later, but by participating in the northernmost of about 3,000 worldwide climate strikes Friday is obviously a brainwashed delinquent being abused by government school propagandists. Or something like that, in the opinion of many she was hoping to reach with a handmade polar bear protest sign and a few shouted chants.
Svalbard Daily Planet for the week of Aug. 19-25, 2019
Climate change forces reindeer turn to seaweed (we’re pretty sure that means “eat” rather than literally transform), salvage resumes on the Northguider trawler, more about tourists wrecking and picking up wreckage in pristine areas, the Svalbard icebreaker is the first Norwegian ship to reach the North Pole, area temperatures at highest point in 300-year timespan and more headlines from the global media about this blessed land of the frozen chosen (with our always inspirational masthead motto for the day in italics).
Svalbard Daily Planet for the week of Aug. 11-18, 2019
More tensions with Russia as a key ocean research project and a much-anticipated Hurtigruten cruise east of Svalbard are in peril, weather delays the removal of the wrecked Northguider trawler from north Svalbard, Svalbard called “good practices” example as cruises to other small Arctic communities cause problems, start of annual whaling season brings annual protests, Store Norske coal to aid climate research before mines are dismantled, and more stories from media around the world you may have missed.
Svalbard Daily Planet for the week of Aug. 4-10, 2019
Ukraine joins non-Arctic nations seeking a strong presence in Svalbard to Russia’s outrage, Svalbard Bryggeri debuts a seriously watered-down beverage, why the seed vault isn’t an ideal place to go bananas and other recent headlines about Svalbard from the global mainstream media.
Svalbard Daily Planet for the week of July 28-Aug. 3, 2019
Direct flights to/from Greenland’s northernmost tip, summer hotel stays down for the first time since 2013, Svalbard Vet now offers 24/7 care and more recent headlines from mainstream local and global media.
18 DEGREES ‘HOT’! Longyearbyen maybe warmest place in Norway on Saturday…but ask record setting France (46C) or Alaska (32C) if they’d trade with us
Longyearbyen, shivering in rain and strong winds while mainland Europe baked this week, is joining the summer heat wave with a sudden jolt Saturday afternoon as the temperature is forecast to rise to 18 degrees Celsius for several hours.
‘No other place in the world is warming up faster than Svalbard’: March will be 100th straight month of above-average Svalbard temperatures, weather service says
The cold made things interesting by taking the lead during the first half of March, but ultimately was overcome and now will suffer its 100th straight defeat as Svalbard is about to surpass its 100th straight month of above-average temperatures, according to the Norwegian Meteorological Institute.
Snow now, snow tomorrow, snow forever: More than 100 locals gather in heavy snowstorm hoping it’s more than a memory in northernmost gathering of global ‘climate strike’
As luck would have it – or not, if folks wanted a more “tragic” setting – it was an idyllic snowy Arctic morning for more than 100 people marching in the world’s northernmost gathering of a global youth climate strike that a reported 1.4 million people participated in worldwide Friday.
A drum-beating polar bear, kids holding signs atop a huge pile of freshly plowed snow, and promises not to keep participants standing in the chilly storm too long during a few speeches and songs all spoke to an Arctic that still exists. But with a recent study showing Longyearbyen has already lost two months of winter each year due to climate change in recent decades, Anna Kexel, a German student at The University Centre in Svalbard, told strikers she wants such days to be more than a memory.
Doom’s day: Massive entrance overhaul at even higher price nearly done for seed vault’s ‘real’ 10th anniversary
Last year virtually everybody was here celebrating the 10-year existence (widely mislabeled as the 10th anniversary) of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, gathering at an entrance so badly designed it was undergoing an upgrade more than two times as expensive as the original cost of the entire facility.
This year virtually nobody is here for the true 10th anniversary of the vault (remember, the first anniversary is one year after it opened), which occurs shortly before the upgrades are tested to to ensure the vault really is worthy of its “doomsday” moniker.
