Saving the World With Seeds

Once a month I host a Mind Expansion Group at my home. Twenty - thirty of us gather (and the group is always shifting as we are a pool of well over 100) to listen to a speaker discourse about some subject of interest, we then have a group discussion about it, followed by a convivial dinner together.

This month's topic was about permaculture, genetically modified foods, about fossil fuels, about the rapid decline of oil reserves (even in the oil wells) in our world, and what we can do about it.

One of the things to do (among so many others) is to make sure you have seeds that are not genetically modified, and to have a good store of them on hand.

That brought to mind another brief video from TED.org. This one is about storing millions of seeds on a global level. In the video, Jonathan Drori encourages us to save biodiversity -- one seed at a time. Reminding us that plants support human life, he shares the vision of the Millennium Seed Bank, which has stored over 3 billion seeds to date from dwindling yet essential plant species.


TED says this about Jonathan Drori. He " has dedicated his career to media and learning. As the Head of Commissioning for BBC Online, he led the effort to create bbc.co.uk, the online face of the BBC (an effort he recalls fondly). He came to the web from the TV side of the BBC, where as an editor and producer he headed up dozens of television series on science, education and the arts.

After almost two decades at the BBC, he's now a director at Changing Media Ltd., a media and education consultancy, and is a visiting professor at University of Bristol, where he studies educational media and misperceptions in science. He continues to executive produce the occasional TV series, including 2004's award-winning "The DNA Story" and 2009's "Great Sperm Race." He is on the boards of the Royal Botanic Gardens and the Woodland Trust."