From the record
Real cases, written from the published record. Predict first; the record and its sources come after.
2008–2015 · Svalbard and Aleppo
The vault
In 2008 Norway opened a seed vault dug into a mountain on Svalbard, far inside the Arctic. Seed banks from around the world send copies of their seeds to be kept frozen there, as a backup.
A backup is only tested when someone needs it.
The first time anyone took seeds back out, in 2015, why?
What happened. ICARDA, a research centre whose main seed bank was in Aleppo, could no longer reach its collection during the Syrian war. It withdrew its backup copies from Svalbard and rebuilt the collection in Lebanon and Morocco, then sent new copies back to the vault.
A seed bank is a promise to people you will never meet.
1950s–today · the Ogallala
The falling well
Farmers on the US High Plains pump groundwater from the Ogallala aquifer to irrigate crops. In much of it the water table has fallen by many metres since pumping took off, because more is pumped each year than rain puts back.
Pumping water up takes energy, and the energy depends on how high you lift it.
If farmers pump the same amount each season, does the cost per season stay the same?
What happened. Each metre the table drops is another metre to lift every litre, so the same harvest costs more energy each year, and wells must be deepened. In parts of the southern High Plains, wells have run too low to irrigate at all.
Pause to think. Which of these can you get back in your lifetime: the soil, the water, or the seed varieties?