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Easy solution: tax carbon emissions. Who cares if you’re using energy to mine Bitcoin? Or if you’re using it to play video games? Or to run the AC all day? If

Easy solution: tax carbon emissions. Who cares if you’re using energy to mine Bitcoin? Or if you’re using it to play video games? Or to run the AC all day? If it you’re internalizing the cost of any emissions, then you’ll use those resources efficiently.

SwimSwimHungry 6y ago
Hard to do this when you can have other countries with much looser regulations allow Bitcoin miners run rampant. What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. I have no delusions that this will halt activity in this sector entirely, but it will make it reasonably difficult to make any substantial money this way without raising some serious eyebrows.
- jude- 6y ago
  > Hard to do this when you can have other countries with much looser regulations allow Bitcoin miners run rampant. You tariff their imports and apply economic sanctions. > What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. Why cryptocurrencies? There are plenty of things that pollute far more.
  - SwimSwimHungry 6y ago
    Why are you handwaving away my concerns? You do realize cryptocurrencies (and to be specific, PoW ones) aren't replacing any of these so called other things that pollute. Speaking of which, can you quantify what things pollute more? At any rate, I get the feeling we are going to be talking past each other and wasting time and energy (heh) on this conversation.
    - px43 6y ago
      What's your bias? You seem to have created your HN account 8 months ago and comment almost exclusively about trying to get cryptocurrencies banned. We don't need a world with more Luddites trying to outlaw math. The future will be secured and cryptographically verified, and there's not anything you can do to stop it.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - SwimSwimHungry 6y ago
        We want to outlaw math now? Are we even arguing in good faith at this point? And so what if my post history is mostly anti-cryptocurrency. This is a position I hold to strongly, and someone needs to give the other side so these four walls aren't filled with infinite circle jerks.
        bawolff 6y ago
        You'll never be able to convince the other side of anything if you don't take the time to understand where they are coming from. Shouting into the void may feel good, but does not change hearts and minds.
        SwimSwimHungry 6y ago
        The problem with text based conversations like this is that you really aren't able to perceive my physical or emotional state easily over text. Using all caps and multiple punctuation marks are also not only extremely rude in polite company, but I'm sure HN has rules against that kind of thing. :) And bawolff... my aim is to at least give those reading from the sidelines some things to think about. I am sure as heck unable to convince a hardcore proponent of Bitcoin to change in a 15-20 minute back and forth, not because my points are necessarily bad, but because human beings are a stubborn lot (I know I can be too!) I think I did OK overall. I know some of my comments were reacted to negatively, but that's fine. I don't expect agreement easily.
        bawolff 6y ago
        > And bawolff... my aim is to at least give those reading from the sidelines some things to think about. And are you under the impression that you're the only voice that people on the sidelines are going to hear? You need to understand the counter arguments so you can adapt your own arguments to counter them. You can't defeat an enemy you don't understand.
    - jude- 6y ago
      > Why are you handwaving away my concerns? Calm down. > Speaking of which, can you quantify what things pollute more? You're all over the comments trying to pin the blame for CO2 emissions on the the existence of PoW cryptocurrencies. But if you stop and think about the problem for more than 5 seconds, you'll realize that it's the CO2 emissions, not cryptocurrencies, that are the problem. They were a problem before cryptocurrencies, and would continue to be a problem even if cryptocurrencies didn't exist. I think you'll find that many cryptocurrency fans are also green-energy fans, and would love to live in a world where all energy was 100% renewable. Like, no one here wants to burn more fossil fuels.
      - abduhl 6y ago
        You didn’t answer their question. Can you quantify what things pollute more?
        jude- 6y ago
        Here, let me Google that for you. First, let's assume for a moment that this February 2021 CNBC source [1] is correct in that Bitcoin mining produces 36.94 megatons of CO2 per year. The original source the CNBC article cited can be found here: [3] (which currently pegs Bitcoin at 47.62 megatons/year). According to the EPA, the US economy alone produced 6,558 megatons of CO2 [2] in 2019 (i.e. under pre-COVID emissions). So, Bitcoin's CO2 annualized output as of February 2021 was 0.5% of the US economy's CO2 output from 2 years ago. This works out to be: * 5.6% of the US agricultural sector emissions, OR * 4.3% of US commercial and residential building emissions (heating, cooling, waste), OR * 2.4% of the US manufacturing industry, OR * 2.2% of all US electricity generation, OR * 1.9% of all US transportation emissions According to this article from 2016 published in Environmental Research Letters [4], the US could save a combined 110 megatons of CO2 emissions simply by using better building insulation, since it would reduce heating/cooling energy expenditure. That's about 3x the Bitcoin CO2 emission rate I quoted above. So, @SwimSwimHungry, I'll ask once again: why the outrage over cryptocurrencies? Can I expect you to have 3x the outrage over bad building insulation? [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/bitcoin-btc-surge-renews-worries-about-its-massive-carbon-footprint.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/bitcoin-btc-surge-renews-wor... [2] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... [3] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption [4] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/034017 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/03...
- young_unixer 6y ago
  Or kill all people. Both are effective at fixing the emissions problem. Both are also extremely oppressive and unjust.
  - SwimSwimHungry 6y ago
    That's quite a stretch of a response. Wiping out humans and curtailing bitcoin are not at all equitable. One is unconscionable. The other is the right thing to do, in my opinion.
  - Glavnokoman 6y ago
    Why taking the extremes? Maybe just a bit of this and a bit of that... :)
- zapdrive 6y ago
  > What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. Lol.. and that will stop all crypto-world currency trading? Just like how making drugs illegal stopped all drug trade?
  - SwimSwimHungry 6y ago
    If you read past that next sentence, I admitted it won't actually cause such activities to completely cease. It just needs to be stunted so that the majority of such transactions are disincentivized. Disincentivized enough that nobody would bother adding it to their retirement strategy or use it out in the open. The dark web will continue to do their own thing.
- bawolff 6y ago
  > Hard to do this when you can have other countries with much looser regulations allow Bitcoin miners run rampant. And yet we've done this for other pollutants. CFC's aren't destroying the ozone layer anymore.
- kolinko 6y ago
  This would halt any legal activity and keep the illegal activity intact.
- birracerveza 6y ago
  >What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. I have a better idea, let's make everything that causes pollution a crime. Bought a plastic water bottle? Straight to jail. Refueled your car? Yep, jail. You used your heater? Believe it or not, jail. I'm sure we'll live in a pollution free utopia in no time. Thank you for your insightful contribution. This is the quality comments I come to HN for.
  - politician 6y ago
    Breathing? Right to jail.
    - batirch 6y ago
      Reminds of Haven episode S1 of Star Trek Next Gen. Any crime is punishable by death. So there won't be any more crime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfqa596xxbc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfqa596xxbc
      - KSteffensen 6y ago
        Everyone will be happy, then. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0LUUFQ4MNM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0LUUFQ4MNM
    - odiroot 6y ago
      Don't even think of eating beans. Methane is illegal too.
  - itsyaboi 6y ago
    You joke, but this is the exact thought process behind gun-free zones.
  - Glavnokoman 6y ago
    Any idea can be exaggerated out of sanity bounds. If you do not see the difference between the incentives and criminalizing/punishment this is your own problem.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  It is also hard to manage humanity if the temperature increases by 5 degrees celsius. Yes, this is hard policy to get right. So what? We have the entire world to figure this out and we are on a timer. Any first attempt will have flaws and loopholes and need to be improved over time. But this is just an excuse for people to avoid acting. We need to do something. A carbon tax is the least extreme solution that has any chance of functioning.
- snarf21 6y ago
  A carbon tax won't halt activity but it could cause the price to drop. If Bitcoin drops to $300, it is no longer profitable to mine. I agree that making it illegal would help. Main street would be loathe to depend on wire transfers to Hong Kong to transfer in/out. However, given Coinbase just went public, there will (unfortunately) be way too much political pressure to kill the segment.
  - yreg 6y ago
    Why would the carbon tax drastically drop bitcoin price? If electricity price increases, the difficulty dicreases. As far as the difficulty stays high enough to keep the network secure the markets don't have a reason to care.
    - snarf21 6y ago
      The problem with the difficulty decreasing is that it depends on how much and how fast. It depends on how much the tax is relative to the cost to mine. Also, it could also politically be positioned as a "bitcoin tax" instead of a climate change thing to make it bi-partisan. I personally think these are the things that causes Main Street to move on. If all of the commoners sell their BTC the price will drop.
      - yreg 6y ago
        An international carbon tax could not be surprisingly high (innitially) nor come fast enough to shock the markets.
fergie 6y ago
Why tax carbon emissions rather than directly taxing the manufacture of bitcoin? Carbon taxes increase costs for everything. Should we increase the cost of say, hospitals because some people _really_ want to mine bitcoin?
- cjblomqvist 6y ago
  Yes, because everyone should pay the "real" price stuff costs unless deliberately subsidized. If hospital bills go up because of it (doubt it), then subsidize hospitals. The incentives will be much better in that world. Hospitals can for example optimize for using less energy, which would be a win for the world. Just look at Europe and the effect of the carbon tax there. I don't have links (sorry), but there are lots of studies "proving" that that makes for a more efficient and optimized market aligned with the desired outcome.
- lend000 6y ago
  Who is to say what is a valid use of energy? How much energy goes into watching television? The pollution tax should be levied such that it provides the government enough to "undo" the pollution.
- admax88q 6y ago
  Because Bitcoin is not the sole cause of climate change, carbon is. You can try to play a game of whack a mole by taxing and regulating individual activities hoping to reduce carbon as a second order effect, or you can just target the root problem. There's will always be another wasteful use of carbon intensive energy so long as carbon intensive energy remains cheap.
- fighterpilot 6y ago
  Because carbon pollution is an externality no matter what its use case is. The point of the tax is to make the carbon price correct so as to incentivize correct usage across all domains.
- orangecat 6y ago
  Why tax carbon emissions rather than directly taxing the manufacture of bitcoin? Because carbon emissions do the same amount damage whether it's the result of bitcoin mining or running a hospital. Carbon taxes increase costs for everything. Everything that produces carbon, which is exactly the point. Should we increase the cost of say, hospitals To the extent that they are significant polluters, yes. Trying to micromanage "good" and "bad" emissions just encourages exploiting loopholes. (e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/cafe-loophole-could-lead-to-bigger-cars/2011/12/14/gIQA3bGLuO_blog.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/cafe-lo...)
throwaway59553 6y ago
yeah tax the little guy playing games or trying to be confortable in a hot day, that's a great plan man. I'm pretty sure we can all afford yet one more tax.
scotty79 6y ago
Even easier solution. Tax all the coal that enters your country economy, either from earth or from neighbours.
- loeg 6y ago
  Burning natural gas, as in the plant referenced by the article, also produces CO2.
  - scotty79 6y ago
    Sure, that too. My point is coal and similar resorces don't have many other uses so you can safely tax the resource, mined or umported rather than the act of burning. And if you have some specific application that you might want to be not affected you might make special tax breaks for it.
    - loeg 6y ago
      Ah, that's totally reasonable. Thanks for clarifying.
machiaweliczny 6y ago
easy? How do you enforce it worldwide? If you impose it volutarily then how you don't lose competitive adventage? It's only possible now because clean energy ia cheaper (but still cannot compete in emergency situations), so we should invest in fission and fusion research EDIT: I'm in favor of carbon tax BTW, we can afford it now and will incentivise investment in green tech more

SwimSwimHungry 6y ago

Hard to do this when you can have other countries with much looser regulations allow Bitcoin miners run rampant. What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. I have no delusions that this will halt activity in this sector entirely, but it will make it reasonably difficult to make any substantial money this way without raising some serious eyebrows.

jude- 6y ago
> Hard to do this when you can have other countries with much looser regulations allow Bitcoin miners run rampant. You tariff their imports and apply economic sanctions. > What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. Why cryptocurrencies? There are plenty of things that pollute far more.
- SwimSwimHungry 6y ago
  Why are you handwaving away my concerns? You do realize cryptocurrencies (and to be specific, PoW ones) aren't replacing any of these so called other things that pollute. Speaking of which, can you quantify what things pollute more? At any rate, I get the feeling we are going to be talking past each other and wasting time and energy (heh) on this conversation.
  - px43 6y ago
    What's your bias? You seem to have created your HN account 8 months ago and comment almost exclusively about trying to get cryptocurrencies banned. We don't need a world with more Luddites trying to outlaw math. The future will be secured and cryptographically verified, and there's not anything you can do to stop it.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - SwimSwimHungry 6y ago
      We want to outlaw math now? Are we even arguing in good faith at this point? And so what if my post history is mostly anti-cryptocurrency. This is a position I hold to strongly, and someone needs to give the other side so these four walls aren't filled with infinite circle jerks.
      - bawolff 6y ago
        You'll never be able to convince the other side of anything if you don't take the time to understand where they are coming from. Shouting into the void may feel good, but does not change hearts and minds.
        SwimSwimHungry 6y ago
        The problem with text based conversations like this is that you really aren't able to perceive my physical or emotional state easily over text. Using all caps and multiple punctuation marks are also not only extremely rude in polite company, but I'm sure HN has rules against that kind of thing. :) And bawolff... my aim is to at least give those reading from the sidelines some things to think about. I am sure as heck unable to convince a hardcore proponent of Bitcoin to change in a 15-20 minute back and forth, not because my points are necessarily bad, but because human beings are a stubborn lot (I know I can be too!) I think I did OK overall. I know some of my comments were reacted to negatively, but that's fine. I don't expect agreement easily.
        bawolff 6y ago
        > And bawolff... my aim is to at least give those reading from the sidelines some things to think about. And are you under the impression that you're the only voice that people on the sidelines are going to hear? You need to understand the counter arguments so you can adapt your own arguments to counter them. You can't defeat an enemy you don't understand.
  - jude- 6y ago
    > Why are you handwaving away my concerns? Calm down. > Speaking of which, can you quantify what things pollute more? You're all over the comments trying to pin the blame for CO2 emissions on the the existence of PoW cryptocurrencies. But if you stop and think about the problem for more than 5 seconds, you'll realize that it's the CO2 emissions, not cryptocurrencies, that are the problem. They were a problem before cryptocurrencies, and would continue to be a problem even if cryptocurrencies didn't exist. I think you'll find that many cryptocurrency fans are also green-energy fans, and would love to live in a world where all energy was 100% renewable. Like, no one here wants to burn more fossil fuels.
    - abduhl 6y ago
      You didn’t answer their question. Can you quantify what things pollute more?
      - jude- 6y ago
        Here, let me Google that for you. First, let's assume for a moment that this February 2021 CNBC source [1] is correct in that Bitcoin mining produces 36.94 megatons of CO2 per year. The original source the CNBC article cited can be found here: [3] (which currently pegs Bitcoin at 47.62 megatons/year). According to the EPA, the US economy alone produced 6,558 megatons of CO2 [2] in 2019 (i.e. under pre-COVID emissions). So, Bitcoin's CO2 annualized output as of February 2021 was 0.5% of the US economy's CO2 output from 2 years ago. This works out to be: * 5.6% of the US agricultural sector emissions, OR * 4.3% of US commercial and residential building emissions (heating, cooling, waste), OR * 2.4% of the US manufacturing industry, OR * 2.2% of all US electricity generation, OR * 1.9% of all US transportation emissions According to this article from 2016 published in Environmental Research Letters [4], the US could save a combined 110 megatons of CO2 emissions simply by using better building insulation, since it would reduce heating/cooling energy expenditure. That's about 3x the Bitcoin CO2 emission rate I quoted above. So, @SwimSwimHungry, I'll ask once again: why the outrage over cryptocurrencies? Can I expect you to have 3x the outrage over bad building insulation? [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/bitcoin-btc-surge-renews-worries-about-its-massive-carbon-footprint.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/bitcoin-btc-surge-renews-wor... [2] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... [3] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption [4] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/034017 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/03...
young_unixer 6y ago
Or kill all people. Both are effective at fixing the emissions problem. Both are also extremely oppressive and unjust.
- SwimSwimHungry 6y ago
  That's quite a stretch of a response. Wiping out humans and curtailing bitcoin are not at all equitable. One is unconscionable. The other is the right thing to do, in my opinion.
- Glavnokoman 6y ago
  Why taking the extremes? Maybe just a bit of this and a bit of that... :)
zapdrive 6y ago
> What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. Lol.. and that will stop all crypto-world currency trading? Just like how making drugs illegal stopped all drug trade?
- SwimSwimHungry 6y ago
  If you read past that next sentence, I admitted it won't actually cause such activities to completely cease. It just needs to be stunted so that the majority of such transactions are disincentivized. Disincentivized enough that nobody would bother adding it to their retirement strategy or use it out in the open. The dark web will continue to do their own thing.
bawolff 6y ago
> Hard to do this when you can have other countries with much looser regulations allow Bitcoin miners run rampant. And yet we've done this for other pollutants. CFC's aren't destroying the ozone layer anymore.
kolinko 6y ago
This would halt any legal activity and keep the illegal activity intact.
birracerveza 6y ago
>What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. I have a better idea, let's make everything that causes pollution a crime. Bought a plastic water bottle? Straight to jail. Refueled your car? Yep, jail. You used your heater? Believe it or not, jail. I'm sure we'll live in a pollution free utopia in no time. Thank you for your insightful contribution. This is the quality comments I come to HN for.
- politician 6y ago
  Breathing? Right to jail.
  - batirch 6y ago
    Reminds of Haven episode S1 of Star Trek Next Gen. Any crime is punishable by death. So there won't be any more crime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfqa596xxbc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfqa596xxbc
    - KSteffensen 6y ago
      Everyone will be happy, then. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0LUUFQ4MNM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0LUUFQ4MNM
  - odiroot 6y ago
    Don't even think of eating beans. Methane is illegal too.
- itsyaboi 6y ago
  You joke, but this is the exact thought process behind gun-free zones.
- Glavnokoman 6y ago
  Any idea can be exaggerated out of sanity bounds. If you do not see the difference between the incentives and criminalizing/punishment this is your own problem.
UncleMeat 6y ago
It is also hard to manage humanity if the temperature increases by 5 degrees celsius. Yes, this is hard policy to get right. So what? We have the entire world to figure this out and we are on a timer. Any first attempt will have flaws and loopholes and need to be improved over time. But this is just an excuse for people to avoid acting. We need to do something. A carbon tax is the least extreme solution that has any chance of functioning.
snarf21 6y ago
A carbon tax won't halt activity but it could cause the price to drop. If Bitcoin drops to $300, it is no longer profitable to mine. I agree that making it illegal would help. Main street would be loathe to depend on wire transfers to Hong Kong to transfer in/out. However, given Coinbase just went public, there will (unfortunately) be way too much political pressure to kill the segment.
- yreg 6y ago
  Why would the carbon tax drastically drop bitcoin price? If electricity price increases, the difficulty dicreases. As far as the difficulty stays high enough to keep the network secure the markets don't have a reason to care.
  - snarf21 6y ago
    The problem with the difficulty decreasing is that it depends on how much and how fast. It depends on how much the tax is relative to the cost to mine. Also, it could also politically be positioned as a "bitcoin tax" instead of a climate change thing to make it bi-partisan. I personally think these are the things that causes Main Street to move on. If all of the commoners sell their BTC the price will drop.
    - yreg 6y ago
      An international carbon tax could not be surprisingly high (innitially) nor come fast enough to shock the markets.

fergie 6y ago

Why tax carbon emissions rather than directly taxing the manufacture of bitcoin? Carbon taxes increase costs for everything. Should we increase the cost of say, hospitals because some people _really_ want to mine bitcoin?

cjblomqvist 6y ago
Yes, because everyone should pay the "real" price stuff costs unless deliberately subsidized. If hospital bills go up because of it (doubt it), then subsidize hospitals. The incentives will be much better in that world. Hospitals can for example optimize for using less energy, which would be a win for the world. Just look at Europe and the effect of the carbon tax there. I don't have links (sorry), but there are lots of studies "proving" that that makes for a more efficient and optimized market aligned with the desired outcome.
lend000 6y ago
Who is to say what is a valid use of energy? How much energy goes into watching television? The pollution tax should be levied such that it provides the government enough to "undo" the pollution.
admax88q 6y ago
Because Bitcoin is not the sole cause of climate change, carbon is. You can try to play a game of whack a mole by taxing and regulating individual activities hoping to reduce carbon as a second order effect, or you can just target the root problem. There's will always be another wasteful use of carbon intensive energy so long as carbon intensive energy remains cheap.
fighterpilot 6y ago
Because carbon pollution is an externality no matter what its use case is. The point of the tax is to make the carbon price correct so as to incentivize correct usage across all domains.
orangecat 6y ago
Why tax carbon emissions rather than directly taxing the manufacture of bitcoin? Because carbon emissions do the same amount damage whether it's the result of bitcoin mining or running a hospital. Carbon taxes increase costs for everything. Everything that produces carbon, which is exactly the point. Should we increase the cost of say, hospitals To the extent that they are significant polluters, yes. Trying to micromanage "good" and "bad" emissions just encourages exploiting loopholes. (e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/cafe-loophole-could-lead-to-bigger-cars/2011/12/14/gIQA3bGLuO_blog.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/cafe-lo...)

throwaway59553 6y ago

yeah tax the little guy playing games or trying to be confortable in a hot day, that's a great plan man. I'm pretty sure we can all afford yet one more tax.

scotty79 6y ago

Even easier solution. Tax all the coal that enters your country economy, either from earth or from neighbours.

loeg 6y ago
Burning natural gas, as in the plant referenced by the article, also produces CO2.
- scotty79 6y ago
  Sure, that too. My point is coal and similar resorces don't have many other uses so you can safely tax the resource, mined or umported rather than the act of burning. And if you have some specific application that you might want to be not affected you might make special tax breaks for it.
  - loeg 6y ago
    Ah, that's totally reasonable. Thanks for clarifying.

machiaweliczny 6y ago

easy? How do you enforce it worldwide? If you impose it volutarily then how you don't lose competitive adventage? It's only possible now because clean energy ia cheaper (but still cannot compete in emergency situations), so we should invest in fission and fusion research EDIT: I'm in favor of carbon tax BTW, we can afford it now and will incentivise investment in green tech more