I am all for having a backup. I do wonder if, in a catastrophe, we would still have the resources to spare to retrieve the seeds from the moon, though.
I am all for having a backup. I do wonder if, in a catastrophe, we would still have the resources to spare to retrieve the seeds from the moon, though.
Why would you design the vault so that you need to retrieve seeds from it? Seems like having rockets filled with seeds on the moon ready to launch when they receive the signal would be way easier....
Why would you design the vault so that you need to retrieve seeds from it? Seems like having rockets filled with seeds on the moon ready to launch when they receive the signal would be way easier. Granted, I still think it's a ridiculous idea either way.
Too many points of failure. If the rockets explode then you're out of seeds. But yeah, it is absolutely ridiculous. The only way it would be a good idea is if it's like a vault that is for aliens...
Too many points of failure. If the rockets explode then you're out of seeds. But yeah, it is absolutely ridiculous.
The only way it would be a good idea is if it's like a vault that is for aliens or like future species, not a practical backup.
If the rocket that went to retrieve the seeds explodes you're also out of seeds, except you have two opportunities for it to explode, and the rocket needs to be far, far bigger and more complex to...
If the rocket that went to retrieve the seeds explodes you're also out of seeds, except you have two opportunities for it to explode, and the rocket needs to be far, far bigger and more complex to break earth orbit versus just essentially falling back from the moon.
Seems like it would be way easier to just have batteries of dozens of reliable long term rockets ready to go on the moon.
The hardest part of getting to the moon and back is by far the getting there part, you need a massive amount of energy to break earth orbit. Seems more ideal to front load that cost.
I’d like to think that there’s a group within the governments out there that have contingencies planned for such things but we’re not aware of them. Like a silo somewhere hidden where they could...
I’d like to think that there’s a group within the governments out there that have contingencies planned for such things but we’re not aware of them.
Like a silo somewhere hidden where they could launch a rocket to the moon if need be.
Just imagine it. Somewhere, underground, a perfectly functional heavy lift rocket sits ready - meretriciously mothballed, but ready to go now or in 100 years. On top of it sits a lunar lander,...
Just imagine it. Somewhere, underground, a perfectly functional heavy lift rocket sits ready - meretriciously mothballed, but ready to go now or in 100 years. On top of it sits a lunar lander, capable of reaching the moon, landing precisely on top of an underground base, accessing the deep vaults, loading up with a few hundred lbs of seed material, and returning to earth.
At the same time, on the surface, NASA burns through literally 100 billion dollars to build a rocket that physically cannot reach the moon, with a lander that doesn't have a working heat shield and that's so tall it needs a lift for people to exit on the moon - that is, if thoughts and prayers are enough to hold it upright after touchdown.
I'm pretty sure that any cataclysm thorough enough to wipe out every mine shaft seed bank would also be thorough enough to ensure said rockets (and its many necessary pilots, mechanics, engineers,...
I'm pretty sure that any cataclysm thorough enough to wipe out every mine shaft seed bank would also be thorough enough to ensure said rockets (and its many necessary pilots, mechanics, engineers, and the infrastructure to feed them and keep them alive) would also be wiped out or damaged badly enough to prevent getting to the moon and back.
If you can find and secure such a mineshaft well enough to house the aforementioned infrastructure, sticking a seed bank in there too seems roughly as cheap as free in comparison.
I always wondered if they had those, but figured if they did, they would languish over time because convincing the next generations to keep it fully operational would be a tough sell unless you...
I always wondered if they had those, but figured if they did, they would languish over time because convincing the next generations to keep it fully operational would be a tough sell unless you get them to buy in early.
I imagine it's less for a case of societal collapse but more for some catastrophe that somehow compromises the seed vaults on Earth. Some species of plants could end up extinct in that case, but...
I imagine it's less for a case of societal collapse but more for some catastrophe that somehow compromises the seed vaults on Earth. Some species of plants could end up extinct in that case, but regular Lunar missions would then still be a thing. I guess this would mostly involve rare plant species.
It seems to me that the article tries to convince us that even the Svalbard vault is not as safe as we'd think and we are relying more and more on the seed vaults.
I like the idea, but it'll depend on how permanent the proposed moon base will actually be and how expensive such a Lunar seed vault would end up being.
I think a better solution would just be building more secure seed vaults on earth. You could build 1000 svalbards for what it would cost to build a lunar seed vault. A few dozen secure vaults on...
I think a better solution would just be building more secure seed vaults on earth. You could build 1000 svalbards for what it would cost to build a lunar seed vault. A few dozen secure vaults on earth would have a much better chance of surviving than one on the moon also.
That was exactly my thought. Doing that NOW would be extremely difficult and absurdly expensive let alone post event that requires such stuff. The bottom of the ocean would be more practical and...
That was exactly my thought. Doing that NOW would be extremely difficult and absurdly expensive let alone post event that requires such stuff.
The bottom of the ocean would be more practical and feasible and that’s saying something.
The ocean isn't cold enough plus heating, is FULL of "nasty" viruses and bacteria, and we don't have the tech to make things waterproof nearly forever. They'd also be under insane pressures up to...
The ocean isn't cold enough plus heating, is FULL of "nasty" viruses and bacteria, and we don't have the tech to make things waterproof nearly forever. They'd also be under insane pressures up to 600 atmospheres vs, as Professor Farnsworth observe, "anywhere between 0 and 1" for space. I can't think of a worse place than the ocean
And it's still going to be cheaper to solve all of that and retrieve it than it is to solve getting the material to the moon, let alone getting it back.
And it's still going to be cheaper to solve all of that and retrieve it than it is to solve getting the material to the moon, let alone getting it back.
The way I see it, this is more of a vault for preserving the Earth's genetic heritage in an absolute worst-case scenario. So that the seeds could be retrieved generations after total collapse. I...
The way I see it, this is more of a vault for preserving the Earth's genetic heritage in an absolute worst-case scenario. So that the seeds could be retrieved generations after total collapse. I think when it comes to basic survival, it's pretty unlikely that the contents of a seed vault are ever necessary.
A good analogy is with data. You'll have your primary online data store, then a secondary data store is also online and that's your backup. This is svalbard - when disaster strikes, it's relatively easy to switch over and start using the backup as your primary, but by the same token this backup is also more vulnerable.
Then you have your absolute catastrophe secondary backup, offline tape storage. At some interval, you copy all your data onto tapes and store those tapes in a vault someplace, so even if something terrible wipes out your primary store and secondary store, you can still recover, albeit slowly and losing some amount of more recent data. This is the moon seed vault.
As much as I am in favor of space exploration and the "not all the eggs in one basket" approach, getting things to and from the Moon has a long, fragile technological dependency path. I can see...
As much as I am in favor of space exploration and the "not all the eggs in one basket" approach, getting things to and from the Moon has a long, fragile technological dependency path.
I can see too many roads to ecological collapse that don't leave the infrastructure needed for retrieving that precious archive. The Moon is also a relatively high radiation environment near the surface - not every convenient lava tube will be safe.
Can we keep the archive out of conflicts from whatever geopolitical fracas is building on Earth? If you've got the technology to get to the Moon easily, then those conflicts could easily send a nuke (or a big rock) in some final spasm of wanton destruction.
We really, truly need to start working on our shit as well as building insurance policies against the shit we've lost.
The moon might be our only shot in a nuclear apocalypse. We might not get it back, but we could leave it for others, whether alien or remnant. It being a moonshot is true, but there are no corners...
These extreme conditions could naturally support cryogenic storage of seeds, spores and even animal gametes for thousands of years. Additionally, the moon’s lava tubes — vast underground chambers — provide natural radiation shielding and stable environments, almost perfectly suited for long-term preservation.
The moon might be our only shot in a nuclear apocalypse. We might not get it back, but we could leave it for others, whether alien or remnant. It being a moonshot is true, but there are no corners on earth that's safe from geopolitics: targeting the moon will be too pointlessly expensive for war time wanton destruction when people are always much closer targets for hate.
I guess my question is "our only shot at at what?" If the Earth is destroyed to the point that current life needs a kickstart, likely due to nuclear armaments, then it's likely inhospitable to any...
I guess my question is "our only shot at at what?" If the Earth is destroyed to the point that current life needs a kickstart, likely due to nuclear armaments, then it's likely inhospitable to any new life that would spring from those seeds. In the time that it takes for the world to recover enough, I think it's likely that an entirely new set of ecosystems and species will fill the space. It's entirely possible that the old native life will now be invasive or just not suited to their old locations anymore.
That's on top of the language problem. It's similar to the issue we have with nuclear waste disposal sites: how can we convey to an unknown future civilization that may or may not share our language what they should do? How would an alien species understand information about what is in the vault and use it to restore the old natural life? Would they do such a thing or simply study the existing state of Earth and view the vault as a historical artifact, not to be used if it's even understood? What about a future human civilization - would they know the vault is even there and know to look for it, or would they stumble upon it and have to decipher its intent?
I like the concept of a seed vault on the moon, but just like computers a backup is only good if you can restore from it. Otherwise, you just have 0 backups.
I see what you're trying to say, but space travel is getting cheaper all the time, esp with moon base coming up as @Aerrol observed. Chernobyl was a big deal, but at the end of the. century it's...
I see what you're trying to say, but space travel is getting cheaper all the time, esp with moon base coming up as @Aerrol observed.
Chernobyl was a big deal, but at the end of the. century it's actually a small area affected; even Nagasaki and Hiroshima and Fukuoka are mostly perfectly fine. I don't see a scenario where all of human is wiped out in war, that we'd still need seed vault for, agreed. But we could see one region wiped out immediately:
In 2015, the civil war in Syria destroyed the ICARDA seed bank near Aleppo — one of the world’s last repositories of drought-resistant wheat and barley for the Middle East. For the first time in history, a withdrawal was made from the Svalbard Vault so that scientists could re-establish these crops elsewhere.
Troubling scenes from an Arctic in full-tilt crisis: The heat that hit Svalbard in February was so intense that scientists could dig into the ground with spoons, "like it was soft ice cream."
Again, most humans will still be around after a disastrous area-wide wipe out, and we're already going to the moon, and maybe soon, remotely piloted semi autonomous drone tech gets good enough to deposit /retrieve at a fraction of the price.
As for long shot alien tombstone, we can encase some seeds in a bakelite/crystal/something and put it on the door. They'll recognize life.
Wow, great answers - basically what I would say. Only thing I'd add is I don't see this as a either-or scenario. I want another Earth backup to Svalbard ASAP + having this as a third backup that...
Wow, great answers - basically what I would say. Only thing I'd add is I don't see this as a either-or scenario. I want another Earth backup to Svalbard ASAP + having this as a third backup that is hopefully better proofed against climate and more directly human induced catastrophe (nuclear reactor explosions, military conflict). Yes, someone might still attack the Moon but it's not really that likely in the coming decades.
And yes, as @patience_limited says - we have to sort our damn shit socially and get back onto a track of peaceful negotiation instead of posturing and god forbid even more open conflict.
If civilization on Earth is destroyed, I don’t care about aliens or whatever people manage to survive off planet. I suppose they can take care of themselves, but everything I actually care about...
If civilization on Earth is destroyed, I don’t care about aliens or whatever people manage to survive off planet. I suppose they can take care of themselves, but everything I actually care about is here. It’s no consolation at all if life goes on somewhere off-planet.
It’s possible to imagine things from a very zoomed-out, off-planet point of view, but that’s only one perspective and I don’t think it’s a very healthy one. From a photo taken from an interplanetary spacecraft, the Earth looks like a blue dot, but thinking that way is a psychological trick that leads to nihilism. (More here.)
I want a lot of my tax dollars to go towards multiple good backups, agreed. And yeah I have long history of struggling with nihilism, thank you for the reminder to be vigilant
I want a lot of my tax dollars to go towards multiple good backups, agreed. And yeah I have long history of struggling with nihilism, thank you for the reminder to be vigilant
Archive Link: https://archive.is/gfFkE Really intriguing idea that would honestly be a lot less costly than you might think given the current plans for building a permanent base(s) on the Moon....
Really intriguing idea that would honestly be a lot less costly than you might think given the current plans for building a permanent base(s) on the Moon. I'm all for it, assuming it's done securely and with independent oversight.
I'm struggling to understand the climate catastrophe use-case. If global warming occurs to such an extent that Svalbard is lost and we have to resort to the moon vault, wouldn't it be likely that...
I'm struggling to understand the climate catastrophe use-case.
If global warming occurs to such an extent that Svalbard is lost and we have to resort to the moon vault, wouldn't it be likely that the seeds will find their previous habitat now inhospitable?
Even if they're planted in cooler climates, the weather patterns will be different too. Maybe the only way they'd survive is in a tightly controlled greenhouse which is going to be energy intensive and pricey, and therefore not suitable at scale.
Oh that's an easy one. Farming today is highly regimented and utilizes a tiny, tiny subset of the crops used throughout human history. There are tonnes of strains saved in the seed bank which may...
Oh that's an easy one. Farming today is highly regimented and utilizes a tiny, tiny subset of the crops used throughout human history. There are tonnes of strains saved in the seed bank which may outperform (or be the only ones to survive) a major climate shift while still being edible for humans and able to be grown at scale.
According to this article, if we're on track to hit 2C of warming, the Earth would be back to the average temperature of the Pliocene era about 3-5 million years ago (for context, it's estimated...
According to this article, if we're on track to hit 2C of warming, the Earth would be back to the average temperature of the Pliocene era about 3-5 million years ago (for context, it's estimated the earliest humans emerged around 300k years ago).
Checking the vault website it doesn't say anything about having recovered seeds which grew that long ago (happy to be wrong about this). Isn't it a bit of a guess to assume any of our current samples could survive climates like that?
... Are you suggesting that not having a perfectly reliable backup means you shouldn't try? Yes, we don't have seeds from millions of years ago. No, that doesn't mean it's useless. Biology is...
... Are you suggesting that not having a perfectly reliable backup means you shouldn't try?
Yes, we don't have seeds from millions of years ago. No, that doesn't mean it's useless. Biology is highly variable and adaptable and I would bet good money that you could find crops that could adapt to that temperature change. For example, a crop grow in a hot, wet climate could be applied to a much warmer, wetter Pacific Northwest.
I think the question behind ideas like this - Should we have a backup of Svalbard because climate change is putting Svalbard in danger? - is the wrong question to ask. It's a problem of...
I think the question behind ideas like this - Should we have a backup of Svalbard because climate change is putting Svalbard in danger? - is the wrong question to ask. It's a problem of opportunity cost.
The article doesn't give any timescales, but realistically something like this is going to take at least a decade to build and hundreds of millions of <insert currency> (Svalbard took 4 years and $9 million and it's not going to be less). That's a lot of time and money that could go towards fixing the core issue instead.
That someone can win a presidency partly based on the promise of less renewable energy (or at least in spite it) shows we haven't even convinced the general public that climate change is a problem. Let alone make reasonable progress to solving it. I don't see how this helps in that fight.
Part of the point of the seed archive is to maintain a diverse gene library of traits that might be desirable in future crop plant breeding. The article notes the wide range of strains saved are...
Part of the point of the seed archive is to maintain a diverse gene library of traits that might be desirable in future crop plant breeding. The article notes the wide range of strains saved are for things like pest and disease resistance and climate tolerance.
I am all for having a backup. I do wonder if, in a catastrophe, we would still have the resources to spare to retrieve the seeds from the moon, though.
Why would you design the vault so that you need to retrieve seeds from it? Seems like having rockets filled with seeds on the moon ready to launch when they receive the signal would be way easier. Granted, I still think it's a ridiculous idea either way.
Too many points of failure. If the rockets explode then you're out of seeds. But yeah, it is absolutely ridiculous.
The only way it would be a good idea is if it's like a vault that is for aliens or like future species, not a practical backup.
If the rocket that went to retrieve the seeds explodes you're also out of seeds, except you have two opportunities for it to explode, and the rocket needs to be far, far bigger and more complex to break earth orbit versus just essentially falling back from the moon.
Seems like it would be way easier to just have batteries of dozens of reliable long term rockets ready to go on the moon.
The hardest part of getting to the moon and back is by far the getting there part, you need a massive amount of energy to break earth orbit. Seems more ideal to front load that cost.
I’d like to think that there’s a group within the governments out there that have contingencies planned for such things but we’re not aware of them.
Like a silo somewhere hidden where they could launch a rocket to the moon if need be.
Wishful thinking I know.
Just imagine it. Somewhere, underground, a perfectly functional heavy lift rocket sits ready - meretriciously mothballed, but ready to go now or in 100 years. On top of it sits a lunar lander, capable of reaching the moon, landing precisely on top of an underground base, accessing the deep vaults, loading up with a few hundred lbs of seed material, and returning to earth.
At the same time, on the surface, NASA burns through literally 100 billion dollars to build a rocket that physically cannot reach the moon, with a lander that doesn't have a working heat shield and that's so tall it needs a lift for people to exit on the moon - that is, if thoughts and prayers are enough to hold it upright after touchdown.
Beautiful.
Truly, malapropism is the highest form of Art.
Sounds like a sweet location. Maybe they could vault some seeds there.
But wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of having something off-world for even more security and whatever [insert cataclysmic scenario on earth]?
I'm pretty sure that any cataclysm thorough enough to wipe out every mine shaft seed bank would also be thorough enough to ensure said rockets (and its many necessary pilots, mechanics, engineers, and the infrastructure to feed them and keep them alive) would also be wiped out or damaged badly enough to prevent getting to the moon and back.
If you can find and secure such a mineshaft well enough to house the aforementioned infrastructure, sticking a seed bank in there too seems roughly as cheap as free in comparison.
I always wondered if they had those, but figured if they did, they would languish over time because convincing the next generations to keep it fully operational would be a tough sell unless you get them to buy in early.
I imagine it's less for a case of societal collapse but more for some catastrophe that somehow compromises the seed vaults on Earth. Some species of plants could end up extinct in that case, but regular Lunar missions would then still be a thing. I guess this would mostly involve rare plant species.
It seems to me that the article tries to convince us that even the Svalbard vault is not as safe as we'd think and we are relying more and more on the seed vaults.
I like the idea, but it'll depend on how permanent the proposed moon base will actually be and how expensive such a Lunar seed vault would end up being.
I think a better solution would just be building more secure seed vaults on earth. You could build 1000 svalbards for what it would cost to build a lunar seed vault. A few dozen secure vaults on earth would have a much better chance of surviving than one on the moon also.
That was exactly my thought. Doing that NOW would be extremely difficult and absurdly expensive let alone post event that requires such stuff.
The bottom of the ocean would be more practical and feasible and that’s saying something.
The ocean isn't cold enough plus heating, is FULL of "nasty" viruses and bacteria, and we don't have the tech to make things waterproof nearly forever. They'd also be under insane pressures up to 600 atmospheres vs, as Professor Farnsworth observe, "anywhere between 0 and 1" for space. I can't think of a worse place than the ocean
And it's still going to be cheaper to solve all of that and retrieve it than it is to solve getting the material to the moon, let alone getting it back.
The way I see it, this is more of a vault for preserving the Earth's genetic heritage in an absolute worst-case scenario. So that the seeds could be retrieved generations after total collapse. I think when it comes to basic survival, it's pretty unlikely that the contents of a seed vault are ever necessary.
A good analogy is with data. You'll have your primary online data store, then a secondary data store is also online and that's your backup. This is svalbard - when disaster strikes, it's relatively easy to switch over and start using the backup as your primary, but by the same token this backup is also more vulnerable.
Then you have your absolute catastrophe secondary backup, offline tape storage. At some interval, you copy all your data onto tapes and store those tapes in a vault someplace, so even if something terrible wipes out your primary store and secondary store, you can still recover, albeit slowly and losing some amount of more recent data. This is the moon seed vault.
It's a fantastic idea and I hope it's pursued.
As much as I am in favor of space exploration and the "not all the eggs in one basket" approach, getting things to and from the Moon has a long, fragile technological dependency path.
I can see too many roads to ecological collapse that don't leave the infrastructure needed for retrieving that precious archive. The Moon is also a relatively high radiation environment near the surface - not every convenient lava tube will be safe.
Can we keep the archive out of conflicts from whatever geopolitical fracas is building on Earth? If you've got the technology to get to the Moon easily, then those conflicts could easily send a nuke (or a big rock) in some final spasm of wanton destruction.
We really, truly need to start working on our shit as well as building insurance policies against the shit we've lost.
The moon might be our only shot in a nuclear apocalypse. We might not get it back, but we could leave it for others, whether alien or remnant. It being a moonshot is true, but there are no corners on earth that's safe from geopolitics: targeting the moon will be too pointlessly expensive for war time wanton destruction when people are always much closer targets for hate.
I guess my question is "our only shot at at what?" If the Earth is destroyed to the point that current life needs a kickstart, likely due to nuclear armaments, then it's likely inhospitable to any new life that would spring from those seeds. In the time that it takes for the world to recover enough, I think it's likely that an entirely new set of ecosystems and species will fill the space. It's entirely possible that the old native life will now be invasive or just not suited to their old locations anymore.
That's on top of the language problem. It's similar to the issue we have with nuclear waste disposal sites: how can we convey to an unknown future civilization that may or may not share our language what they should do? How would an alien species understand information about what is in the vault and use it to restore the old natural life? Would they do such a thing or simply study the existing state of Earth and view the vault as a historical artifact, not to be used if it's even understood? What about a future human civilization - would they know the vault is even there and know to look for it, or would they stumble upon it and have to decipher its intent?
I like the concept of a seed vault on the moon, but just like computers a backup is only good if you can restore from it. Otherwise, you just have 0 backups.
I see what you're trying to say, but space travel is getting cheaper all the time, esp with moon base coming up as @Aerrol observed.
Chernobyl was a big deal, but at the end of the. century it's actually a small area affected; even Nagasaki and Hiroshima and Fukuoka are mostly perfectly fine. I don't see a scenario where all of human is wiped out in war, that we'd still need seed vault for, agreed. But we could see one region wiped out immediately:
We've already had to use Svalbard
We're going to the moon anyway
we're losing Svalbard now
Again, most humans will still be around after a disastrous area-wide wipe out, and we're already going to the moon, and maybe soon, remotely piloted semi autonomous drone tech gets good enough to deposit /retrieve at a fraction of the price.
As for long shot alien tombstone, we can encase some seeds in a bakelite/crystal/something and put it on the door. They'll recognize life.
Wow, great answers - basically what I would say. Only thing I'd add is I don't see this as a either-or scenario. I want another Earth backup to Svalbard ASAP + having this as a third backup that is hopefully better proofed against climate and more directly human induced catastrophe (nuclear reactor explosions, military conflict). Yes, someone might still attack the Moon but it's not really that likely in the coming decades.
And yes, as @patience_limited says - we have to sort our damn shit socially and get back onto a track of peaceful negotiation instead of posturing and god forbid even more open conflict.
If civilization on Earth is destroyed, I don’t care about aliens or whatever people manage to survive off planet. I suppose they can take care of themselves, but everything I actually care about is here. It’s no consolation at all if life goes on somewhere off-planet.
It’s possible to imagine things from a very zoomed-out, off-planet point of view, but that’s only one perspective and I don’t think it’s a very healthy one. From a photo taken from an interplanetary spacecraft, the Earth looks like a blue dot, but thinking that way is a psychological trick that leads to nihilism. (More here.)
Better to have backups in multiple countries.
I want a lot of my tax dollars to go towards multiple good backups, agreed. And yeah I have long history of struggling with nihilism, thank you for the reminder to be vigilant
Archive Link: https://archive.is/gfFkE
Really intriguing idea that would honestly be a lot less costly than you might think given the current plans for building a permanent base(s) on the Moon. I'm all for it, assuming it's done securely and with independent oversight.
I'm struggling to understand the climate catastrophe use-case.
If global warming occurs to such an extent that Svalbard is lost and we have to resort to the moon vault, wouldn't it be likely that the seeds will find their previous habitat now inhospitable?
Even if they're planted in cooler climates, the weather patterns will be different too. Maybe the only way they'd survive is in a tightly controlled greenhouse which is going to be energy intensive and pricey, and therefore not suitable at scale.
Oh that's an easy one. Farming today is highly regimented and utilizes a tiny, tiny subset of the crops used throughout human history. There are tonnes of strains saved in the seed bank which may outperform (or be the only ones to survive) a major climate shift while still being edible for humans and able to be grown at scale.
According to this article, if we're on track to hit 2C of warming, the Earth would be back to the average temperature of the Pliocene era about 3-5 million years ago (for context, it's estimated the earliest humans emerged around 300k years ago).
Checking the vault website it doesn't say anything about having recovered seeds which grew that long ago (happy to be wrong about this). Isn't it a bit of a guess to assume any of our current samples could survive climates like that?
https://earth.org/data_visualization/a-brief-history-of-co2/
... Are you suggesting that not having a perfectly reliable backup means you shouldn't try?
Yes, we don't have seeds from millions of years ago. No, that doesn't mean it's useless. Biology is highly variable and adaptable and I would bet good money that you could find crops that could adapt to that temperature change. For example, a crop grow in a hot, wet climate could be applied to a much warmer, wetter Pacific Northwest.
I think the question behind ideas like this - Should we have a backup of Svalbard because climate change is putting Svalbard in danger? - is the wrong question to ask. It's a problem of opportunity cost.
The article doesn't give any timescales, but realistically something like this is going to take at least a decade to build and hundreds of millions of <insert currency> (Svalbard took 4 years and $9 million and it's not going to be less). That's a lot of time and money that could go towards fixing the core issue instead.
That someone can win a presidency partly based on the promise of less renewable energy (or at least in spite it) shows we haven't even convinced the general public that climate change is a problem. Let alone make reasonable progress to solving it. I don't see how this helps in that fight.
Part of the point of the seed archive is to maintain a diverse gene library of traits that might be desirable in future crop plant breeding. The article notes the wide range of strains saved are for things like pest and disease resistance and climate tolerance.
I wonder if it might be more plausible to just genetically sequence these seeds and print them later once we have the requisite technology.