For those who haven’t read Sustainability Simplified, one of the main things it builds to is something that I thought crazy when I first thought it. The idea is a constitutional amendment in the style of the thirteenth, but instead of banning slavery, two main clauses, both traditional, both Enlightendigenous. One protects life, liberty, and property when the threat to them came through the environment. The other disallowing making property out of nature unless you leave enough as good in common for others, quoting John Locke.

I call it an APPLE PIE Amendment for reasons you have to read the book for.

The more I thought about it, the less crazy it felt, no more than the thirteenth must have before its passage. Now I’m beyond thinking it’s not crazy. Nearly everyone agrees government has some role, one of them being to protect life, liberty, and property. Most governments have looked the other way regarding pollution and depletion in violation of this principle.

The thirteenth seemed impossible until it passed. Now, nearly no one would want it repealed.

People think of many ways to act on our environmental problems. The want to conserve wilderness, help people hurt, teach people science, and more.

The point of this post: Whatever all those acts do, to reach sustainability, the US must pass an APPLE PIE amendment. Likewise, Lincoln realized he had to lead to an amendment being passed. Without the Thirteenth Amendment or something like it, all the slaves could have been freed, but the plantation owners would have recaptured them or imported new ones.

Lincoln would not have been effective had he gone to plantations and helped injured slaves. He helped slaves most by not going to where they were but to go to Washington DC and ultimately engineer passing the amendment.

We can best help people affected by our environmental problems by passing an APPLE PIE amendment, which can mean to focus on it over recycling or other things.

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