For years, humans have been marching to their own demise through the use of fossil fuels, which results in severe damage to human health and the environment. Fossil fuels themselves are not dangerous, but the use of them is because of the carbon dioxide emitted when they are used in abundance. The only way to stop this death march is to use Legalism, a philosophy created by Han Feizi which focuses on harsh punishments for bad behavior and rewarding good deeds, and also making sure humans hold one another responsible.

 Firstly, fossil fuels have a horrible effect on human health short-term and long-term. For humans, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s summary, air pollution affects humans in the short term with problems such as difficulty breathing, asthma attacks, or wheezing, and coughing. While long term wise, air pollution results in a higher chance of respiratory infections, heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer, and this impacts people even greater who are already sick. Additionally, the article “Deaths from Fossil Fuel Emissions Higher Than Previously Thought” by Leah Burrows, reports the researchers found that fossil fuel emissions are responsible for 18 percent of deaths globally in 2018. These two articles show that if we keep emitting fossil fuels humans will have worse health conditions.

The second problem fossil fuel pollution is responsible for is the environment. According to Emissions from Fossil Fuels Continue to Rise, there has been an increase in concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is primarily coming from fossil fuel production. In 1750, there were only 78 parts per million, which was around the beginning of the industrial era, so there were a lot of factories. However, in 2023 that number dramatically shot up becoming 420 parts per million. These fossil fuels are not just affecting our atmosphere, they are also affecting our water. According to the paper of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute by Savannah Bertrand, fossil fuels are resulting in water pollution. On average, a fracking well, a tool to get oiL, a heavily used fossil fuel, out of the ground, uses between 1.5 million to 16 million gallons of water. The water that is pumped in becomes wastewater and could become toxic. This is because the wastewater often has substances like arsenic, lead, chlorine, and mercury in it. This is dangerous because it sometimes affects groundwater and drinking water, making them become toxic. This means that just getting to the fossil fuels themselves causes lots of water to be wasted and the wastewater itself affects drinking water.

Now that the dangers of fossil fuels have been discussed, This issue will be resolved by Han Feizi using legalism to enact harsh punishments and by making others hold each other accountable. Firstly, the reason why this problem exist and why it still is a problem is explained in Haz Feizi’s wise words, when he says, “it is the people’s nature to abhor toil and enjoy ease.” This explains why the people who use fossil fuels in mass use them because it is the easy way to get energy. This then causes him to also proclaim, “making the people watch one another in their hidden affairs.” This is one of Han Feizi’s solutions to make sure we stop using fossil fuels in abundance by holding humans accountable for their actions. Also, he believes that we should be rewarded or punished for holding or not holding humans accountable for this. He says “For, whosoever denounces a criminal offense, is not held guilty but is given a reward; whosever misses any culprit, is definitely censured and given the same penalty as the culprit.” This shows that his solution is that we either report on those around us, to make sure humans do not cause more problems, or if we do not report then we are part of that problem. This means that we will be punished for standing ideally by. To summarize, to stop fossil fuel pollution we must use Han Feizi’s teachings, legalism, to stop humans from ruining our environment and their own health because they are lazy by making sure we hold each other accountable and by receiving punishments and rewards for doing so.