Show your support for an endangered seed bank
One of the world's foremost seed banks is in deep trouble after a Russian court ruled yesterday that the Russian Housing Development Foundation can take the land the seed bank is on and sell it to private home developers.
Currently, Pavlovsk Experimental Station is home to 5,500 varieties of edible plants, mostly fruit. The collections survived World War II and many of the varieties can be found nowhere else on Earth. Losing a seed bank would represent more than just a loss of biodiversity for biodiversity's sake. Collections like this can be used as breeding stock, imparting useful traits like drought tolerance or weed resistance to more commonly grown varieties. As the effects of global climate change increase, such breeding could become crucial.
The only chance left to stop the razing of Pavlovsk is a direct appeal to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
That's where you come in. The Global Crop Diversity Trust is collecting signatures on a petition that will be presented to Medvedev and Putin. The hope is that the show of global support for the Pavlovsk station might incline the men to step in and save it.
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Maggie Koerth-Baker
I do the Twitter, the Google+, and (to a much lesser extent) the Facebook.
Books
• Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us
Upcoming Appearances
• April 2 at Skeptics in the Pub, Boston, Mass.— 7:00 pm at Tommy Doyle's in Harvard Square. Please RSVP.
•April 4 at MIT: "Shedding Light, Online", a discussion about how blogging and a dynamic audience helped shape my book, Before the Lights Go Out—4:00 pm in Maseeh Hall. Please RSVP.
• April 6 at Carnegie Mellon University: More details to come
• April 9-13 at University of Colorado, Boulder: 64th Annual Conference on World Affairs
• April 10 at Colorado State University, Fort Collins: "Putting the Fun Back in Infrastructure"—3:30 pm in the Rocky Mountain Innosphere.
• April 19 at The Bakken Museum in Minneapolis: Book Launch Party! Come enjoy snacks, a presentation by me, and some fun with the Bakken's Leyden jar.
• April 21 at Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul: Earth Day Tweetup event with Will Steger and Sean Otto—events run 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.
• May 2 at University of California, Berkeley: "Putting the Fun Back in Infrastructure"—6:00 pm, location TBA.
• May 3 at the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco Chapter—Lunchtime lecture, time and location TBA.
• May 3 at Barnes and Noble, El Cerrito, Cali.—7:00 pm.
• May 30 in New York City—Panel on local and DIY energy with the New America Foundation
• June 22-25 in Aspen, Colorado: Aspen Environment Forum
• July 5-8 at CONvergence in Minneapolis, Minn.—exact times and dates TBA
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