Sustainable living one awesome step at a time

[RubiconDecision]

There is a GMO topic, and I suggest that discussing that topic there would be more appropriate and not interfere with the current topic on sustainabile living.
...

Sustainable living is not just a practice for Western consumers with lots of funds, but a way for the impoverished to live in a manner that allows a minimal investment and with work provides a slow steady gain. There are regions of the world that could greatly benefit from sustainable forestry practices. Trees can produce a lot of food, medicine, prevent soil erosion, cool the region, etc. It can create a microclimate that benefits soil bacteria, insects, plants, animals, and humanity.

In many areas, villagers burn what few wood debris they can for heat and cooking fuel. By doing so, they lose all of the above benefits as well not having wood for lumber, tools, thatching, etc.

One option is using a LuciaStove. Here is a prototype. It is in Italian, but there are English subtitles. The stove does burn any organic refuse but instead burns the gases released from that organic refuse and so it produces far more heat but produces useful biochar. That leftover is a useful soil additive, can be used to improve water taste, can be altered and used as a toothpaste, can be an additive for gunpowder, etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsH_Gh-n2Mg


There are far cheaper ones that one can make literally with abundant scrap metal from garbage dumps. By providing villages with training, simple tools, and some mentoring, they could produce their own stoves and continue to do so, and even trade them. The more machinist work is needed, the slower the production and the more expense to it. A stove that produces similar heat and emission and biochar can be made for about $5-10 US. If scrap metal is used of course it is far cheaper.

A brick rocket stove can be made for outdoor use for pennies. We currently are teaching people to do this by making mud/straw brick, firing them in kilns, and then forming them in a pattern to produce excellent heat.

In addition, there are world-wide efforts to use solar ovens. These are literally formed with cardboard and plastic (or glass) and produce adequate heat to dehydrate food, pasteurize water, and heat up a meal. Of course this takes time and warm weather.

Because of the many parts to livestock's digestive tracts, consumed plant material becomes condensed into manure. If that dries, the smell leaves and this dried manure makes a very valuable fuel for stoves. It burns hot and clean with few emissions in a regular wood stove, but in a stove like in the youtube video, it mostly produces steam and very low emissions. While manure produces a useful fertilizer, there is an excess, so rather than contaminate the local water supply, it makes sense to use it in this manner.

Certain shrub species could be grown to burn in these stoves, then at the same time, valuable tree species could be grown to benefit the village longer term.

The most difficult aspects of sustainability is finding ways to enable the villagers to maintain current cultural practices and so not to interfere with their normal development, but to guide them with new ideas. Then to find ways that native species can be reintroduced into their region, for adding a non-native species might in the end harm their environment. Also not to create a dependancy upon Western Civilization by gifting them with some materials, but not enabling them to harvest or manufacture or mine that material in their own region.

Example: Sure there are any number of medicines that we could supply them with, but unless they have the ability to harvest the original materials and extract it, then you're only creating a dependency. The goal is to make them self-sufficient.

Example: In history, many 3rd world farmers grew polycultures of plant and animal species to put food on the dinner table. Then some people taught them that if they grew one crop, then they could sell that crop to a company, and so make a profit. The problem was with so many of their other regions growing that crop, if there was ever a glut of the crop, or a plant disease, or an insect infestation, or a natural disaster, then they couldn't feed themselves!

[chamaeleo]

You are right, starvation is a terrible thing, which is why I strongly believe in the necessity of developing genetically modified crops that could give us so much greater yields than much of the stuff we are currently growing.

Except...many GMO crops work not by being inherently pest-resistant or more competitive vs weeds, but rather being pesticide and herbicide resistant.This has resulted in an evolutionary arms race (several of them, actually) wherein increased chemical applications are needed every year for GMOs to keep up their fight against organisms being selected for the ability to survive poisoning.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ng-herbicide-p

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philp...-pesticide-use

Most flowering crops depend on insect pollenators. Pretty soon we'll be needing GM'd bees, too...

And the higher yield reference is absurd. Conventionally farmed soil has been depleted of nutrients, eradicated of N-fixing 'weeds', beneficial fungi, and worms, and its transmissivity ruined by the compaction brought on by heavy machinery. Thus nutrients must be recharged by mining, processing, and importing chemical fertilizers designed to work with specific monoculture plantings. Biological symbionts' niche...nothing replaces them. Aeration, restored by mechanical tilling. And while it is true that a monoculture field is the most efficient from a harvesting standpoint: when it fails, there's no backup crops to sell at market, or to keep your topsoil in situ.

Wise investors diversify their portfolio. Farming should be no different.

What good is having a slightly higher yield, when GM seeds cost 3-8 x more than traditional...and only last 1 season before self destruction? When you must also buy brand-specific fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides? When there's techniques being developed that actually produce more than conventional methods, without the need for any chemicals? When more supplements are needed in each successive year? When Monsanto and Dow run the FDA, are literally just a few votes away from establishing a global monopoly on food supply, and would love nothing better than to see every competing lineage of crop literally go extinct?

http://greatist.com/health/india-cro...ds-gmos-022613

It is an unfortunate pity that some people hold such fears against them, though. No scientific study has conclusively pointed to harm coming from the intake of genetically modified crops (and there is no biological reason for why it would be that way, either).

So we've artificially ramped up our food's resistance to 'cides. More food. Yay. Surely though, our own bodies will never need similar mitigative GM measures to protect us from residual poisons? What's the worst that could happen? As long as the EPA says it's safe to consume ever increasing amounts of chemicals whose longterm effects are completely unknown, we are completely safe. Right?

Think about it. You're absolutely right in that GMO's themselves probably won't hurt you, your children, or your pets (to say nothing about any residual chemical applications). But is slightly cheaper, cardboard food really worth the uncertainty?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?t...zine%20vermont

[Phier]

I'm going to Costco today on my way home from work. I've been eating rather healthy the last year and I'm going to be buying all "healthy" foods in terms of macro-nutrients and calories.

Its going to cost me about $5 for a LARGE bag of white onions. FIVE freeking dollars for over a months worth of onions, and I likes me onions. I'm also going to buy catfish if they have it (4.95lb), chicken, broccoli, fresh green beans, red peppers, cauliflower, artichokes, and a few other items I can't name until my wife mails me the list.

Home gardens are great and all, but they are not a solution to anything. "Raising Awareness" with rooftop gardens, please girlfriends. The only viable solution for the future is massive scale professional farming. Nothing wrong with people having gardens, but lets be realistic on the net effect of this kinda farming. Its not very practical.

Incidentally there is a Wholefoods in walking distance of this Costco. I won't be shopping there, far to expensive.

[Armatus]

del

[Armatus]

Sure it may be reasonable to an extent, but I think the OP is a good solution in addition to by actually helping people to re-prioritize. People in general don't place a high value on food evident by the countless number of global fast food operations.

But again, I anit tryin to feed the world so I aint concerned with it. If I have to take care of myself I'll up my game.

[RubiconDecision]

I'm going to Costco today on my way home from work. I've been eating rather healthy the last year and I'm going to be buying all "healthy" foods in terms of macro-nutrients and calories.

Its going to cost me about $5 for a LARGE bag of white onions. FIVE freeking dollars for over a months worth of onions, and I likes me onions. I'm also going to buy catfish if they have it (4.95lb), chicken, broccoli, fresh green beans, red peppers, cauliflower, artichokes, and a few other items I can't name until my wife mails me the list.

Home gardens are great and all, but they are not a solution to anything. "Raising Awareness" with rooftop gardens, please girlfriends. The only viable solution for the future is massive scale professional farming. Nothing wrong with people having gardens, but lets be realistic on the net effect of this kinda farming. Its not very practical.

Incidentally there is a Wholefoods in walking distance of this Costco. I won't be shopping there, far to expensive.

Are you seriously trying to say that gardening is more expensive that Costco? You do realize that lots of people grow their own food, water with rainwater, use heirloom seed, etc. That people did it in history up until 1920 or so, and even in rural areas up until 1940 or so.

While chicken takes up more acreage, everyone can raise their own tilapia. It's absolutely true that the average person without training could grow enough food on an acre. With training they could grow much more. The diet would change quite a bit, though people would continue in my region to grow common produce, they likely would begin eating acorns as the Native Americans did. More maple tree tapping at the tail end of winter as the sap rises. Box elder and birch as well.

Personally, if there even is an issue, I really don't know how you city folks are going to make it. Three weeks without the barges and trucks, and it would be complete chaos.

Already food inflation is a major issue in the USA. I imagine a lot of people are deeply adjusting their food budgets this year, less eating out, less meat with a push to eating pork versus beef. I would think many more gardens should be planted this year. But if you're worried about food prices now, and won't or can't consider gardening, then just keep supporting Costco. Other than chicken and catfish, you could raise your food. The main issue is preserving it by dehydrating it, not canning it or freezing it. Most people lack the space today as larders are less common as are enough shelving.

There's a famous family that raises all their food on a tiny plot of land. If I can find the video, I'll post it. Here 6,000 lbs of food on 1/10 of an acre:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM

[Armatus]

Well it's not practical for those Jet setters and City slickers.

[Vin Mariani]

Food is actually cheaper nowadays than it ever has been. Large government subsidies have American consumers paying less as a % of their income for food than in the 1970s.

Again, there is a reason why all those wise farmers from the 1920s and 1930s decided to live the modern American life with supermarkets. The efficiency of large, subsidized agriculture is partly why there is an obesity epidemic today.

No one needs to learn how raise cattle anymore, the world isn't collapsing any time soon.

[Armatus]

Yeah thanks to Nixon.

[Vin Mariani]

Yeah thanks to Nixon.

More due to Earl Butz, the Secretary of Agriculture under Nixon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_L._Butz

[RubiconDecision]

You do realize that a major impetus for the riots in the Middle East were due to food inflation, right? Or that Greek folks are having serious issues. Spain will likely be in the same boat. I think you're too optimistic. The Chinese are rapidly increasing their rate of meat eating and it's going to increase food costs. Couple that with the Great Drought in the Plains States, and you have a perfect storm.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...ots-new-normal
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nadiaaru...-grocery-bill/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ed-States.html

As the amount of wealth increases in nations, then people eat better. It's only going to get worse as more income in some places and more demand will lead to more food inflation.

On the plus side, we have received a lot of rain in the Midwestern states of the USA. That is leading to flooding, but it should also increase the height of the Mississippi River. Because the drought has been so serious, barges have had to reduce tonnage carried, for otherwise they were hitting the mud of the Mississippi. The Corps of Engineers was constantly having to dredge to keep the river open. That should get better and have larger tonnage and so more trade. Still this isn't helping the Great Plains as they have been in a serious drought for a long time. Many farmers there actually prematurely harvested their livestock because of high feed prices, price supports from the American government, and trying to prevent as much as loss as possible. You can't grow crops without rain, and long droughts result in making the soil very sterile due to killing off the bacteria.

Additionally we have a huge issue with honeybees in the USA right now. We don't know why we have colony collapse, but it is very serious. It could be mites, pesticides, Wifi, who knows? Luckily we have some commerical apiaries that move around bees for pollination, otherwise farmers would be having even worse issues.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weathe...ought/2101939/
http://www.wral.com/bee-colonies-col...ives/12327567/

[Armatus]

Additionally we have a huge issue with honeybees in the USA right now. We don't know why we have colony collapse, but it is very serious. It could be mites, pesticides, Wifi, who knows?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/201...lling-our-bees

[Vin Mariani]

You do realize that a major impetus for the riots in the Middle East were due to food inflation, right? Or that Greek folks are having serious issues. Spain will likely be in the same boat. I think you're too optimistic. The Chinese are rapidly increasing their rate of meat eating and it's going to increase food costs. Couple that with the Great Drought in the Plains States, and you have a perfect storm.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...ots-new-normal
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nadiaaru...-grocery-bill/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ed-States.html

As the amount of wealth increases in nations, then people eat better. It's only going to get worse as more income in some places and more demand will lead to more food inflation.

On the plus side, we have received a lot of rain in the Midwestern states of the USA. That is leading to flooding, but it should also increase the height of the Mississippi River. Because the drought has been so serious, barges have had to reduce tonnage carried, for otherwise they were hitting the mud of the Mississippi. The Corps of Engineers was constantly having to dredge to keep the river open. That should get better and have larger tonnage and so more trade. Still this isn't helping the Great Plains as they have been in a serious drought for a long time. Many farmers there actually prematurely harvested their livestock because of high feed prices, price supports from the American government, and trying to prevent as much as loss as possible. You can't grow crops without rain, and long droughts result in making the soil very sterile due to killing off the bacteria.

Additionally we have a huge issue with honeybees in the USA right now. We don't know why we have colony collapse, but it is very serious. It could be mites, pesticides, Wifi, who knows? Luckily we have some commerical apiaries that move around bees for pollination, otherwise farmers would be having even worse issues.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weathe...ought/2101939/
http://www.wral.com/bee-colonies-col...ives/12327567/

Which is exactly why I said that agriculture as we know it is going to change. We are going to move to more controlled environments with more GMO crops that can grow faster and bigger.

The water issue isn't a problem when your crops are in a contained environment that recycles the water that otherwise would be lost as vapor into the atmosphere. Looking at the charts here: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/wateruse-total.html agriculture is one of two main culprits to our water strain. If that could be almost completely eliminated then we have much, much more water than we could use as public consumption.

[Denny Crane!]

On a rare occasion I'm going to agree with RD here

That bee problem is actually incredibly serious. If you want to look for a real civilisation ender then look no further than a total bee collapse. That has every scientist involved ******** bricks and no mistake. It seems apparent that it is linked to chemical disruption along with of course less nectar to go around but the latter clearly isn't the only issue when you have an explosion of beekeeping in London but to few flowers and problems on top of that.

Of course not to diminish the very real problem of poor people getting richer. And you can put all economic problems currently coming down to a great equalising effect. Want to know why we can't keep up an infinite growth in living standards in the West? Because the rest of the world is getting in on it, and that is no bad thing. In economics the size of the economic pie grows but it is definitely not growing as fast as the equalising effect of people getting more of the wealth we horde. So they buy meat and other non subsistence diet sources which of course increases the price.

But if everyone in the UK grew 1kg of food a year the effect would be dramatic, if they grew on average 10kg even more. If that happened throughout every industrialised nation it would ease the pressure.

We grew Curly Kale this year in a relatively small patch of land, way smaller (less than 4ft x 4ft) than your average lawn, lasted right through summer and into winter, we were pulling bits off with snow on it and it tasted fricking awesome (sunday lunch, huge pile of curly kale covered in gravy, awesome). Another crop due in.

Just trying to negotiate a space for a Szechuan tree. Hardy for all climates, no replanting, food crop every year if only minor you can't knock those spices.

[Armatus]

Perhaps we wouldn't even be having this conversation if it weren't for Reaganomics and the Farm crisis of the 1980s.

But before any of the sustainable stuff will happen there's going to be a lot of hurt. There's a lot of farmers still dependent on the government subsides in these times of crisis they aren't even irrigating because hey this is the Midwest west right? Irrigation is for Texas.. so there's a lot of mindsets to change and a lot of work that needs to be done.

[RubiconDecision]

Which is exactly why I said that agriculture as we know it is going to change. We are going to move to more controlled environments with more GMO crops that can grow faster and bigger.

The water issue isn't a problem when your crops are in a contained environment that recycles the water that otherwise would be lost as vapor into the atmosphere. Looking at the charts here: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/wateruse-total.html agriculture is one of two main culprits to our water strain. If that could be almost completely eliminated then we have much, much more water than we could use as public consumption.

There is nothing sustainable about GMO crops. They are hybrid by design. You can't save the seed and get the same crop to grow. You do understand this, yes? What you are proposing has ZERO to do with this topic. Stop highjacking it. Go to the GMO crop topic and knock yourself out.

Are you going to talk about The Soparanos next? It is just as off topic. The topic is on sustainable living. If you can't talk about that, then why be here?

[Vin Mariani]

There is nothing sustainable about GMO crops. They are hybrid by design. You can't save the seed and get the same crop to grow. You do understand this, yes? What you are proposing has ZERO to do with this topic. Stop highjacking it. Go to the GMO crop topic and knock yourself out.

Are you going to talk about The Soparanos next? It is just as off topic. The topic is on sustainable living. If you can't talk about that, then why be here?

Take a chill pill man. Maybe you should sit down and try to think about the other person's argument. Just because there is a GMO thread doesn't mean GMO's are suddenly irrelevant to a conversation about food production.

I know you want to stand on your soapbox and talk about the world ending so you can justify knowing a bunch of talents that were relevant 80 years ago, but I am going to say what I feel contributes to the conversation. If you don't like what I am saying, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to hijack threads, I got no time for that.

I would actually like you to explain the biology of GMO crops and what makes them GMO. When you say "they are hybrid by design" I am curious as to what you mean by hybrid and between what things are being hybridized.

Also continue ignoring my point about the water issue being less of a problem in controlled environments.

[Denny Crane!]

Perhaps we wouldn't even be having this conversation if it weren't for Reaganomics and the Farm crisis of the 1980s.

But before any of the sustainable stuff will happen there's going to be a lot of hurt. There's a lot of farmers still dependent on the government subsides in these times of crisis they aren't even irrigating because hey this is the Midwest west right? Irrigation is for Texas.. so there's a lot of mindsets to change and a lot of work that needs to be done.

How very ethnocentric of you. Other farming problems happened in a world that didn't just contain the USA....sigh. Honestly the problems that effect the USA are often very similar to other western countries and like the financial crisis the problems and causes and results happen across the board not just in the insular states. Good lord! Across westernised EU we've had a problem with farms and the EU has a bigger GDP than the USA. So perhaps Reagans policies didn't effect the whole world and we can take it as a given that the USA isn't the godhead.

There is nothing sustainable about GMO crops. They are hybrid by design. You can't save the seed and get the same crop to grow. You do understand this, yes? What you are proposing has ZERO to do with this topic. Stop highjacking it. Go to the GMO crop topic and knock yourself out.

Are you going to talk about The Soparanos next? It is just as off topic. The topic is on sustainable living. If you can't talk about that, then why be here?

Errr what? You are on about the patented seeds with the killswitch and that is not all GM crops at all.

[Denny Crane!]

Myth 1: Seeds from GMOs are sterile.

No, they'll germinate and grow just like any other plant. This idea presumably has its roots in a real genetic modification (dubbed the Terminator Gene by anti-biotech activists) that can make a plant produce sterile seeds. Monsanto owns the patent on this technique, but has promised not to use it.

Now, biotech companies — and Monsanto in particular — do seem to wish that this idea were true. They do their best to keep farmers from replanting the offspring from GMOs. But they do this because, in fact, those seeds will multiply.

Myth 2: Monsanto will sue you for growing their patented GMOs if traces of those GMOs entered your fields through wind-blown pollen.

This is the idea that I see most often. A group of organic farmers, in fact, recently sued Monsanto, asserting that GMOs might contaminate their crops and then Monsanto might accuse them of patent infringement. The farmers couldn't cite a single instance in which this had happened, though, and the judge dismissed the case.

The idea, however, is inspired by a real-world event. Back in 1999, Monsanto sued a Canadian canola farmer, Percy Schmeiser, for growing the company's Roundup-tolerant canola without paying any royalty or "technology fee." Schmeiser had never bought seeds from Monsanto, so those canola plants clearly came from somewhere else. But where?

Canola pollen can move for miles, carried by insects or the wind. Schmeiser testified that this must have been the cause, or GMO canola might have blown into his field from a passing truck. Monsanto said that this was implausible, because their tests showed that about 95 percent of Schmeiser's canola contained Monsanto's Roundup resistance gene, and it's impossible to get such high levels through stray pollen or scattered seeds. However, there's lots of confusion about these tests. Other samples, tested by other people, showed lower concentrations of Roundup resistance — but still over 50 percent of the crop.

Schmeiser had an explanation. As an experiment, he'd actually sprayed Roundup on about three acres of the field that was closest to a neighbor's Roundup Ready canola. Many plants survived the spraying, showing that they contained Monsanto's resistance gene — and when Schmeiser's hired hand harvested the field, months later, he kept seed from that part of the field and used it for planting the next year.

This convinced the judge that Schmeiser intentionally planted Roundup Ready canola. Schmeiser appealed. The Canadian Supreme Court ruled that Schmeiser had violated Monsanto's patent, but had obtained no benefit by doing so, so he didn't owe Monsanto any money. (For more details on all this, you can read the judge's decision. Schmeiser's site contains other documents.)

So why is this a myth? It's certainly true that Monsanto has been going after farmers whom the company suspects of using GMO seeds without paying royalties. And there are plenty of cases — including Schmeiser's — in which the company has overreached, engaged in raw intimidation, and made accusations that turned out not to be backed up by evidence.

But as far as I can tell, Monsanto has never sued anybody over trace amounts of GMOs that were introduced into fields simply through cross-pollination. (The company asserts, in fact, that it will pay to remove any of its GMOs from fields where they don't belong.) If you know of any case where this actually happened, please let me know.

Myth 3: Any contamination with GMOs makes organic food non-organic.

The organic rules prohibit the "use" of genetic modification in organic agriculture. But if pollen blows from genetically modified corn into your organic cornfield and pollinates a few kernels, you aren't "using" it — at least according to the USDA's interpretation of those rules. In fact, a lot of the organic corn that's fed to organically raised chickens or pigs, does contain some level of GMOs.

That said, organic producers typically do try to minimize the presence of GMOs, because their customers don't want them. It's usually not too hard to keep contamination to a very low level. But there are crops — specifically canola and corn — in which it's extremely difficult to eliminate it entirely.

Myth 4: Before Monsanto got in the way, farmers typically saved their seeds and re-used them.

By the time Monsanto got into the seed business, most farmers in the U.S. and Europe were already relying on seed that they bought every year from older seed companies. This is especially true of corn farmers, who've been growing almost exclusively commercial hybrids for more than half a century. (If you re-plant seeds from hybrids, you get a mixture of inferior varieties.) But even soybean and cotton farmers who don't grow hybrids were moving in that direction.

This shift started with the rise of commercial seed companies, not the advent of genetic engineering. But Monsanto and GMOs certainly accelerated the trend drastically.

Myth 5: Most seeds these days are genetically modified.

Actually, surprisingly few are. Here's the full list of food crops for which you can find GMO varieties: Corn, soybeans, cotton (for oil), canola (also a source of oil), squash, and papaya. You could also include sugar beets, which aren't eaten directly, but refined into sugar. There's also GMO alfalfa, but that goes to feed animals, not for sprouts that people eat. That leaves quite a lot of your garden untouched.

GMO versions of tomatoes, potatoes, and rice have been created and approved by government regulators, but they aren't commercially available.

[RubiconDecision]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sustainable
1
: capable of being sustained

2
a : of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged <sustainable techniques> <sustainable agriculture>
b : of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods <sustainable society>

The goals of sustainable living are to use methods such that it can be produced over and over again without a reliance upon outside influences. GMO seeds are not about sustainable living. Corporate greenhouses are not about sustainable living. Sustainable living is about finding ways to grow crops yourself and not relying upon some corporation to provide you with food or seed.

Example: In many 3rd world impoverished nations, scientists are working on clever ways to help the local populations to find sustainable solutions so that they may creatively solve issues. Lighting is a terrible problem in many of these countries. It isn't enough to give flashlights unless some means of producing the flashlight, bulb, and batteries can be done within the nation. That means finding metal resources, training in fabrication, exploring new battery technology, etc. Many ideas have been proposed such as using a mechanical weight to drive a dynamo to produce a small amount of voltage and amperage, and hence eliminate the need for a battery, but use something like a supercapcitor instead. It holds a charge as the weight spins the dynamo. The main issue is that it powers an LED, so we need to find a solution to produce those within the country. If not, then the nation is reliant upon other nations to produce them. They could trade for them, but it wouldn't be sustainable.

Example: In Latin America, washing clothes is a real issue. Water is extremely heavy. The old fashioned methods of scrubbing clothes leads to back injuries and carpal tunnel syndrome. These folks will never be able to have electricity or afford a standard washing machine. Instead, a special washing machine can be made that is pedal driven and spins a tub with centrifugal force. It uses far less water. The person operating it can sit upon is an ergonomically pump with their calf muscles to spin it. This greatly reduces the amount of time to clean clothes and even to dry clothes as the water is expelled. However, even though they are cheap, unless scientists can fabricate the device within the country using common metals and with simple tools, then it won't be sustainable.

The goal is not to buy this to fix that in sustainable living. The goal is to learn ways to do it yourself, and to help whole communities to find innovation solutions from their own resources. Otherwise all you have done is create a new dependency.

Can you yourself ever produce a GMO seed? NO. Can you keep GMO seeds? Sometimes. They will revert to a different species if not sterile, something I talked about at length in the GMO crop topic. This is not the place to talk about it. It is about finding ways to do things yourself. If you cannot understand this very simple concept, then I cannot see that you can offer much.

On the otherhand people throughout history have saved their seeds from heirloom seeds that they planted. These are sustainable and were the normal pattern for producing delicious food. Often they produce foods that taste better but might not ship as well.

Sustainable living is not about providing solar cells to poor African nations so they can power a computer. They cannot make solar cells. Sustainable living is about finding solutions even from junk so that at least until the junk runs out, then it could provide a resource and remove the unsighly junk. For example, aluminum cans are a blight in many nations. By creating a lye from wood ashes, and biochar, then combining the aluminum can + lye+ carbon, you can make a limited battery. By collecting manure, food wastes, and placing them in a biodigestor of junk parts, then you can create methane to be burned as lighting or cooking fuel.

You can show a community how to make a biosand filter from common resources and for less than $50 US (and far cheaper in those countries) use a bacterial method to eliminate pathogens from their well water. Their well water should be pure since it's from underground aquifers, but they have constant contamination issues from farm runoff (due to livestock and chemical fertilizers and pesticides) and human waste. Giving them a filter that will eliminate pathogens will only work as long as some humanitarian agency will continue to supply them with filters. Can you see why it would be better for the community, as impoverished as they are, to make their own inexpensive filtration for the entire community?