Topic: Bitcoin and global warming - page 11. (Read 3019 times)

I think our main problem is the huge electricity expense induced by mining and its noxious effect on the climate. This is, to my mind, the only serious argument against Bitcoin.
Alleviating the electricity expense should be one of our priorities. If we do not do it for the sake of the Earth (which we really should) we should at least do it selfishly because governments will not tolerate this forever and they will be right. The more the exchange rate increases, the worse it gets, of course.
Some solutions exist though: first there is proof-of-stake, of course. This technology may be too young to be deemed reliable enough but we should at least start considering it.
If we do not like proof-of-stake I think we could drammatically decrease the electricity expense by stopping monetary creation now. Nowdays Bitcoin is famous enough to remain secure even if miners earned transaction fees only. And if as a whole there are 16.5 M coins instead of 21 M, this does not make much of a difference. That is even good for holders. To make miners agree with that solution, they must be compensated for their lost income.  More precisely, active miners must be compensated because they have already bought ASICs. Futures miners do not need to be compensated. Since mining is a competitive industry, future miners will make no profit on average, whatever the reward scheme. To compensate active miners we could decide that the next 2016 blocks yield, say, 100 new coins and then 0 forever. Everybody would win and the Earth above all!
There are probably many other solutions and I wish the community cared a little more about this fundamental issue.

Wow this serious problems i think,
We all need money, but how we get money without destroying our ecosystem.
maybe developer out there should give us more solution about this.
global warming is really serious problem for our planet anyway  

...but in an economic perspective this would destroy markets and may cause hyperinflation in some countries.

Does anyone know/have any figures about the total power consumption that bitcoin requires currently? It should be high I'm sure, and should also go even higher in the future. However, compared to other industries, where does bitcoin rank exactly? I would assume bitcoin's power consumption still ranks lower in comparison to most of the business sectors.

a constant total mining draw of just over one gigawatt...That means that, at a minimum, worldwide Bitcoin mining could power the daily needs of 821,940 average American homes.

The idea of switching into a cryptocurrency payment may sound good, but the drawbacks are highly toxic especially when it comes to hacking and scamming due to its nature. You may be right that the process of making fiat and gold mining harm the environment but if we adapt the system of payment into digitalized forms, this would create chaos into the economies of countries around the world. We may lessen the the impact of pollution around the world slowly, but in an economic perspective this would destroy markets and may cause hyperinflation in some countries.

With bitcoin and climate change the main issues are #1 emissions and #2 carbon sequestration.

There has been a shift towards so called renewable energy which is promoted as being environmentally friendly. This negates bitcoin's electrical consumption to a good degree.

The main issue with climate change involves 80% of the world's natural forests being cut down. Trees naturally store (sequester) carbon. The destruction of forests reduces the planet's ability to store carbon emitted into the atmosphere.

Another major issue is a large percentage of rainfall being produced by forests. Water is pulled from the earth and evaporated through the leaves of trees/plants. This produces rainfall. Cutting down large swaths of forest reduces water which would normally be evaporated which in turn produces drought.

The only legitimate methods of addressing climate change are afforestation programs. Seed bombing. Fighting desertification. Basically planting trees and protecting rain forests.