Recent Thought Provoking Poem,

Noah’s Ark, Again

“Three Quarters of the world’s

Crop bio-diversity,

Is already gone.

For example,

Eighty percent of corn varieties,

That existed in the 1930s,

No longer exist today.”

The United Nations

Food and Agricultural Organization

Five hundred feet below the frozen tundra

About five hundred miles from the North Pole

A new Garden of Eden has just been completed

A sanctuary for Earth’s remaining seed types to go

Far too many people living on Earth, still refuse to believe

That our world now does teeter on the very brink of disaster

But thankfully, Norway had both the vision and the fortitude

To preserve what remains of Earth’s crop DNA, for ever after

Three quarters of Mother Earth’s crop diversity

Has already been lost to our Modern Mankind

We all need to start thinking about what we’ll leave

To Earth’s future generations, and stop being so blind

These frozen seed types, in this new frozen Garden of Eden

They now tell us, can be preserved for the next thousand years

Hopefully, if and when global disaster wipes out Earth’s crops

This frozen storehouse of crop DNA will alleviate agony and fear

Many nations are now sending their crop seeds to this underground vault

And many nations are contributing millions for its upkeep and future costs

Our government in the good old U.S. of A has only contributed $6.5 million

Yet we spend billions on making war, not worrying much about our future loss

This new Garden of Eden, or as Leland calls it, this new Noah’s Ark for Crops, was built by Norway; it can hold over 4 million different types of crop seeds from all around the world; and its operations are financed by both government and private donations, including $20 million from the United Kingdom, $12 million from Australia, $11 million from Germany, and only $6.5 million from the United States – a nation that has so very much to lose, if and when worldwide disaster strikes.

Prior to construction of this ‘global seed bank,’ many nations were keeping their own banks.  But these local banks were not nearly as secure as Norway’s vast new underground vault.  The recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance, have already destroyed some of those countries' seed banks, and a typhoon in 2006, wiped out an entire seed bank in the Philippines

The Global Crop Diversity Trust is also now funding research into methods for storing genetic material from plants like bananas and coconuts, that cannot be stored as seed.

All we now do above ground, all around the world,

Seems to be crumbling, though many still refuse to see;

Yet, all of us on Earth, are all truly, just dust in the wind;

What will you leave behind, for future generations of humanity?

©2008, Mr. Ed