In 2008, the Svalbard Global Seed Trust was heralded as one of the greatest inventions of the year. Located on a remote island in the Svalbard archipelago, halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, the seed vault is a monolithic structure buried deep into the hillside of an arctic mountain. Inside the concrete fortress is a facility capable of storing and preserving a “genetic bank” of 4.5 million varieties of the world’s crops, all kept at a bone-chilling minus 18 degrees Celsius (minus .4 degrees Fahrenheit). “The seed vault is a biological Library of Alexandria, a priceless asset whose importance will only grow. It's valuable not only as a resource for any sort of doomsday scenario, but also as a record of one of humanity's most consequential achievements: agriculture,” says Jamie Henn, co-founder and strategy and communications director at the non-profit 350.org.

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