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Comment by doggosphere | Hacker News Reader

Is it? Over time human energy creation and consumption has grown exponentially with technological innovation. Fire to cook meat, a wagon attached to an ox, combustion engines, air conditioning, wireless networks, data centers, etc.

Today you probably consume more energy in a few days than your ancestors whole lives.

Now, we've created distributed, immutable property, something that has never existed before. It turns electricity into value storage. What is the "correct" amount of energy for humans to spend on such a thing?

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> What is the "correct" amount of energy for humans to spend on such a thing?

Perhaps the "correct" amount is less than what it would take to increase planet temperature by 4°C?

Energy consumption has nothing to do with increasing planet temperature, if Bitcoin consumed 10x the energy via solar panels, it would not have any environmental impact beyond the raw materials used in the panels.

You're equating energy usage to carbon emissions, but you should be able to distinguish the difference.

> Energy consumption has nothing to do with increasing planet temperature,

As long as we're using fossil fuels, planet temperature does in fact have something to do with energy consumption. You seem to be arguing that because renewable energy sources exists, Bitcoin has nothing to do with fossil fuel emissions. However, that is false, as 8% of Bitcoin mining happens in Inner Mongolia, which is home to many of China's large coal mines[0].

[0]: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/bi...

I'm arguing that China subsidizes coal[0], and that China does not utilize a carbon tax[1].

So when you call for a ban of Bitcoin in the name in environmental concerns, you've decided to be the arbiter of energy usage, on what is productive and valuable, and what is not.

You're welcome to argue your points, but it would still be far more efficient and productive to addresses the actual core problem: coal fire plants, and energy prices.

[0]: https://www.iisd.org/gsi/faqs/china

[1]: https://www.carbontax.org/issues/what-about-china/

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