Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated • Hacker News Board

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#241

Post by ckastner » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

nprz wrote: post #151

joe_the_user wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of wasteful industries - crypto is a small slice The difference between crypto and things like agriculture or transportation is obvious. People need food and transportation. If crypto was eliminated entirely tomorrow, on average, no one would suffer - some would lose relative wealth but others would gain relative wealth. Unlike conventional financial markets even, it's hard to argue crypto provides an…

What about commercial cruise lines? Do people need to go on cruises? The cruise industry uses over double the emissions of the bitcoin protocol[0]. Furthermore, millions would be affected if bitcoin were to go offline tomorrow. Particularly people living in authoritarian states[1], or people who do not have access to traditional banking services. [0] https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1414065840157347840?s=2... [1]…

> The cruise industry uses over double the emissions of the bitcoin protocol

Not to defend the cruise lines, but that quote appears bogus. The tweet you cite refers to a "carbon footprint", in response to a quote about particulate emissions (using sulfur dioxide as an example).

This [1] puts total cruise line CO2 emissions in 2017 (first source I picked, but I imagine the number won't have changed much) at 21K tons, whereas a recent Reuters article [2] put Bitcoin at 22,000K tons of CO2.

If the above data is correct, then Bitcoin is responsible for more than 1000x as many CO2 emissions as cruise ships.

[1] https://www.tourismdashboard.org/explore-the-data/cruise-shi...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/how-big-is-bitcoins-carbo...

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#242

Post by endisneigh » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

openfuture wrote: post #238

endisneigh wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't the solution be to educate people and get more people to participate in our democracy? Why do you think cryptocurrencies are better?

Any "solution" that rests on "educating people" is not going to work. What works is incentives and design that makes it hard to misuse or obvious how to use.

> Any "solution" that rests on "educating people" is not going to work.

This is not true at all, lol. How do you think modern civilization came to be?

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#243

Post by hackingforfun » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:21 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #239

hackingforfun wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say, hypothetically, that voting for the president was done on a public blockchain, that anyone can audit, and there were cryptographic guarantees that the people voting are who they say they are. Does that not make that voting system more accountable? In this case I think transparency does lead to accountability.

You don't need a blockchain to do that, and there's a reason voting records for individuals are not made public. It's to protect against coercion, among other things.

Each individual can have a unique identifier that is not linked to their identity. It could be a public key that they generate from their private key. We'd have to figure out the details of how that would work exactly, i.e. making sure people cannot vote twice, but that's possible to figure out.

I don't think there's any way to do this without giving trust to some central entity without a public blockchain. The public blockchain does become the source of trust, but you need a resource (like energy), that is finite, to secure that network.

However, going back to your original comment, you said we are assuming a zero carbon footprint, so that would assume some future where this trust could be put on a network in a way that would be environmentally sustainable. All I'm saying is that there are more possibilities to this technology than I think you are acknowledging.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#244

Post by stripedfish7 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:21 PM UTC

Syonyk wrote: post #86

tornato7 wrote: post #73

Early next year when Ethereum becomes PoS, it will basically be JUST Bitcoin that is PoW in the top 20. From a climate perspective, we can only hope that this narrative will cause Bitcoin to slide in favor of more green currencies.

> Early next year when Ethereum becomes PoS... Haven't they been planning to move to PoS "soon" now for at least several years? I hate to say I'll believe it when I see it, but... the believeability of their PoS timelines is more than a little suspect now.

ethereum 2 is live and PoS :)

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#245

Post by lottin » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:21 PM UTC

danuker wrote: post #106

endisneigh wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do that with a democracy. What benefits do crypto bring?

Not a lot of countries are democracies. Politicians listen to lobbyists more than citizens. With crypto, you don't have to suffer because of them messing up the economy.

> With crypto, you don't have to suffer because of them messing up the economy.

So you won't be affected by unemployment? Poor public services and infrastructure? Corruption? Police brutality? Crime? Because you have crypto. Open your fucking eyes.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#246

Post by lalaland1125 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

nprz wrote: post #205

lalaland1125 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the discussion about "eliminating" and/or taxing cryptocurrency are about trying to reduce the use of cryptocurrencies within developed countries where they are not needed. Nobody here is trying to stop people in authoritarian states from using crypto. Bringing up the authoritarian states is just a strawman.

What happens when those developed countries become authoritarian? Or starts printing trillions of dollars?

I think climate change is the bigger risk here in context.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#247

Post by twofornone » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

dqx wrote: post #195

twofornone wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really weird how these far right "terrorists" all stormed the capitol to "overturn the election" and "hang mike pence" but, somehow, completely forgot to bring the guns that they are so well known for having. Pretty funny way to go about an "insurrection", don't you think?

Makes you wonder why congressman Mo Brooks (R-Alabama) wore body armor to the riot, huh? Maybe to protect against the stun guns, pepper spray, baseball bats and pipe bombs? 14 suspects in the attack are facing federal charges related to bringing dangerous weapons inside the Capitol, 2 are facing firearms-related charges. Why didn't you tell DC's US Attorney’s Office that they were actually unarmed?!

>14 suspects in the attack are facing federal charges related to bringing dangerous weapons inside the Capito

There hasn't been a single conviction related to insurrection or anything more sinister than rioting or trespassing to date. Don't get your hopes up. Further, note the misleading language used in reporting, "armed", "dangerous weapons", but not guns (save the two facing ambiguous "firearms related charges") which as far as I know had nothing to do with actually bringing firearms onto the premises. The popular idea that the rioters were armed with guns is effectively (and deliberately) misinformation, though you won't find an article outright lying about guns inside the capitol.

As for the alleged pipe bombs, one was found at both Democratic and Republican offices, and there is still no publicly released information as to who planted them.

You'd think with a place as heavily surveilled as the capitol there would be no issue producing images of trespassers with guns on premises, yet you'd be hard pressed to find a single one[1]. Even moreso if you watch the livestreams of the event, where there are no guns brandished. There was one arrest made of a participant who allegedly had a number of guns in his truck.

>Why didn't you tell DC's US Attorney’s Office that they were actually unarmed

If your "insurrection" consists of a population known for owning guns, yet arrives 99% unarmed, then it becomes much more difficult to convince people that they were staging an "insurrection" or "coup". If nothing else, surely we can at least agree that, given the lack of firearms and damage, this was a "fiery, but mostly peaceful protest", right?

This whole story is merely an egregious example of the politicization of our media and justice system.

1. There is to my knowledge a single security video showing a single person wandering into the capitol through a backdoor carrying an AR style rifle for about 15 seconds before walking out.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#248

Post by Karrot_Kream » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #228

iskander wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, if not for the real world resource usage, I would be extremely supportive of cryptocurrencies replacing the traditional financial system for reasons that overlap with your reasons for opposing crypto. Essentially, the financial sector has succeeded so wildly in regulatory capture that we have lost any semblance of democratic control over banks and are unable to dispense punitive consequences for large sca…

Wouldn't the solution be to educate people and get more people to participate in our democracy? Why do you think cryptocurrencies are better?

Honestly, for the same reason that we place regulations on businesses instead of just "educating people about their harms". While I'm interested in cryptocurrencies, I'm not an anarcho-capitalist myself, but I do understand the perspective of having an alternative to a (perceived) corpo-state where economic _and_ political actors are all in thrall to large corporations that form an effective oligopoly. Moreover cryptocurrencies aren't forcing you to do anything as much as a new fashion trend doesn't force you to wear the new fashion. There's been a rich history of debate within democratic states about how much power the government should have on its people, this certainly isn't some cut-and-dry affair.

Democratic governments understand that the solution to _everything_ isn't committees of citizens and votes on everything. Democratic governments rely on experts, private businesses, and regulation to bring welfare to their people. Real democratic governments have to balance many factors for the welfare of their people. I feel your view of democracy is a little too naive and unrealistic.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#249

Post by thesausageking » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #3

There's some good data here - that being said, even if the carbon footprint were literally zero, I couldn't personally support cryptocurrency. Fundamentally it's the antithesis to democracy. Say whatever you will about all forms of government, but ultimately no matter the form, there's some level of accountability. Some governments use elections to facilitate this, others use the threat of rulers being killed. One wa…

No one elected the Fed and they print USD like crazy. They're now proposing to print more money to solve climate change. That's the opposite of democracy.

Bitcoin is a transparent, simple currency. There will only ever be 21m Bitcoins and how they're minted is defined up front and everyone knows.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#250

Post by klibertp » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:27 PM UTC

chroem- wrote: post #234

ARandumGuy wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"State control on economic activity" is extremely broad, and can encompass everything from a USSR style planned economy, to the US government breaking up Standard Oil, to even food safety regulations. Given the context of the post, and the general user makeup of HN, I assumed you were discussing economic control based on places like the US or EU. I'm not entirely sure how North Korea or Cambodia fit into the previous…

Places like the DPRK, Cuba, and Venezuela are especially relevant when discussing cryptocurrency because it's a technology that allows people in those locations to escape economic totalitarianism. What confuses me is that people in democratic countries are calling a tool of democracy "anti-democratic". It's completely illogical.

It's possible that the same tool can be used either for, or against, democracy, depending on the environment. That's actually what most tools are like. Using cryptocurrency in an authoritarian state can help democratize the state, while using it in an already democratic state has a potential to do more harm than good. It's similar to violence: using it to kill off the ancien regime can (potentially) pave road towards democracy, while using it to put a non-elected person in charge in an already democratic state will shift the state away from democracy.

Disclaimer: I don't have any opinion on this, just reacting to the "completely illogical" comment.