> “I feel very proud, you know, that I'll be able to look back and say I've had a role to play in removing a megaton of carbon from the atmosphere every week." -- Edgington
There's a very important difference in not emitting carbon into the atmosphere and actively removing carbon from the atmosphere.
Both are critically necessary and complementary, but I don't see how Edgington thinks that switching off PoW suddenly makes Ethereum carbon-negative.
It's a lot like someone being an active part of a group of gangsters taking hostages, then turning around and helping the police freeing them, only to then brag about how proud he/she is of having a role in freeing those poor innocent people.
The phrase "removing a megaton of carbon from the atmosphere every week" is globally syntactically ambiguous. It can be read as "removing [a megaton of carbon from the atmosphere] every week" or as "removing [a megaton of carbon from the atmosphere every week]". The second interpretation means removing a source. Both interpretations are roughly equally valid, although "eliminating" would sound better.
"eliminating the emission of a ton of CO2 every week" is a similarly ambiguous phrase which can be interpreted as [the emission of a ton of CO2 every week] or [the emission of a ton of CO2], every week.
In this case, a better wording would have been: "removing the source of a megaton a week of carbon emissions".
er, I mean...
"We are saving the environment!"
"The wall is very close"
"We're going too fast, shouldn't we brake?"
"Oh at least, we're not accelerating, look, constant speed, everything is fine!"
Reminds me of "negative GDP growth", one of the most roundabout ways to say "wealth creation slowdown".