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Bitcoin Emits Less Than 2% of World’s Military-Industrial Carbon Emissions

19 points by danboarder 5y ago

Flatcircle 5y ago
Who's wants to tell him?
cedricd 5y ago
I'm not sure that spinning that as a positive is a good idea. It's objectively a massive amount.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  The argument I've seen is that worldwide adoption of BTC will somehow end armies and therefore be a net improvement worldwide. How? Not sure.
  - IMTDb 5y ago
    When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
  - gota 5y ago
    I've heard similar arguments. One aspect brought up was that crypto money is "impossible to steal". I argued that the old pipe wrench is so effective that after a practical example the threat of the old pipe wrench is enough to break any cryptography whose key is known by a pipe-wrenchable individual. At that point, the individual needs his/her own pipe wrench. And it is usually a good idea to aggregate with trusted others to pool resources and get a bigger, stronger pipe wrench. Which is the military. I did not get a response other than that my reasoning is flawed and oversimplifies the issue. Which, tbh, it definitely does
- danboarder 5y ago
  Perhaps the idea is to reduce the size of the worlds military industrial complex by more than 2%, and boom, you have Bitcoin offset. Is reducing the military carbon footprint delusional? (I'll answer that, it probably is :/ ).
  - bingbong70 5y ago
    Going to be hard to maintain the military industrial complex when central banks lose the ability to print money without massive devaluation.
joojia 5y ago
Still huge.
legerdemain 5y ago
Bitcoin alone emits the equivalent of almost 2% of the aggregate greenhouse emissions from the military and defense worldwide? Holy shit!
- jonplackett 5y ago
  Yeah the 'less than' in the headline is wilfully misleading.
  - danboarder 5y ago
    Correct, well the author makes clear it's a click-bait title but clarifies the idea being that in comparing bitcoin to USD he includes the government backing the USD, ultimately the US armed forces and current military industrial complex backing it's use. Interesting rhetorical exercise but not sure it's making the point he was hoping for.
- IMTDb 5y ago
  How this guy think he is able to spin this in any kind of "positive" fashion is beyond me. He just made the math and proved how completely crazy bitcoin is from an energy consumption POV and somehow tries to flip the story
  - 1MachineElf 5y ago
    Have you thought about how abolishing national currencies would remove the need for a military industrial complex?
    - IMTDb 5y ago
      No, because at the currency level, the pandemic has proven that the government ability to inject cash in the economy when needed through stimulus checks or temporary unemployed benefits is absolutely essential. At the industrial level, I am not sure of the impact of crypto. You'll still need steel to build bridges wether you pay using gold, oil, paper or crypto. At the military level: "bitcoin" does not sound like a very goos shield vs an AK-47 (nor is euro, usd or any currecny but none pretend to be)
arkitaip 5y ago
You have to be utterly delusional to make this comparison as a positive in the first place.
ssivark 5y ago
Uhhh… I wonder what that number is, normalized by number of BTC transactions that take place today, and scaled by the total number of financial payment transactions.
xputer 5y ago
Alternative title: Bitcoin emits almost 2% of the CO2 emitted by the entire world's military industrial complex.
mikestew 5y ago
Yeah, I don't think that headline is as positive as its writer thinks it is. To parrot other commenters, "holy cow, bitcoin is emitting almost 2% of what the world's militaries crank out? And not even an F-35 to show for it?"
rspeele 5y ago
People are always spreading FUD like this about the military industrial complex but you have to keep in mind, it emits less than 2% of all the carbon in the known universe. So it's actually pretty green when you look at it like that. Also, I get a lot of shit for driving a Hummer but it really has way less emissions than the Maersk shipping fleet, so checkmate libtards.
imtringued 5y ago
Where can I sign up for my physical property to be protected by the blockchain?
Blackstone4 5y ago
This is really reaching...feels like someone trying to justify an ideology...
JoeyBananas 5y ago
All things are trivial when you compare them to the size of the entire military industrial complex. This comparison is absolutely meaningless. The simple fact is that bitcoin consumes something like an entire nuclear powerplant of power continuously, and this has a non-trivial environmental impact. The real problem with bitcoin is that it entirely removes the safety net provided by regulated currency. It's good for nothing except drug deals and speculation.

19 points by danboarder 5y ago

Flatcircle 5y ago

Who's wants to tell him?

cedricd 5y ago

I'm not sure that spinning that as a positive is a good idea. It's objectively a massive amount.

UncleMeat 5y ago
The argument I've seen is that worldwide adoption of BTC will somehow end armies and therefore be a net improvement worldwide. How? Not sure.
- IMTDb 5y ago
  When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
- gota 5y ago
  I've heard similar arguments. One aspect brought up was that crypto money is "impossible to steal". I argued that the old pipe wrench is so effective that after a practical example the threat of the old pipe wrench is enough to break any cryptography whose key is known by a pipe-wrenchable individual. At that point, the individual needs his/her own pipe wrench. And it is usually a good idea to aggregate with trusted others to pool resources and get a bigger, stronger pipe wrench. Which is the military. I did not get a response other than that my reasoning is flawed and oversimplifies the issue. Which, tbh, it definitely does
danboarder 5y ago
Perhaps the idea is to reduce the size of the worlds military industrial complex by more than 2%, and boom, you have Bitcoin offset. Is reducing the military carbon footprint delusional? (I'll answer that, it probably is :/ ).
- bingbong70 5y ago
  Going to be hard to maintain the military industrial complex when central banks lose the ability to print money without massive devaluation.

joojia 5y ago

Still huge.

legerdemain 5y ago

Bitcoin alone emits the equivalent of almost 2% of the aggregate greenhouse emissions from the military and defense worldwide? Holy shit!

jonplackett 5y ago
Yeah the 'less than' in the headline is wilfully misleading.
- danboarder 5y ago
  Correct, well the author makes clear it's a click-bait title but clarifies the idea being that in comparing bitcoin to USD he includes the government backing the USD, ultimately the US armed forces and current military industrial complex backing it's use. Interesting rhetorical exercise but not sure it's making the point he was hoping for.
IMTDb 5y ago
How this guy think he is able to spin this in any kind of "positive" fashion is beyond me. He just made the math and proved how completely crazy bitcoin is from an energy consumption POV and somehow tries to flip the story
- 1MachineElf 5y ago
  Have you thought about how abolishing national currencies would remove the need for a military industrial complex?
  - IMTDb 5y ago
    No, because at the currency level, the pandemic has proven that the government ability to inject cash in the economy when needed through stimulus checks or temporary unemployed benefits is absolutely essential. At the industrial level, I am not sure of the impact of crypto. You'll still need steel to build bridges wether you pay using gold, oil, paper or crypto. At the military level: "bitcoin" does not sound like a very goos shield vs an AK-47 (nor is euro, usd or any currecny but none pretend to be)

arkitaip 5y ago

You have to be utterly delusional to make this comparison as a positive in the first place.

ssivark 5y ago

Uhhh… I wonder what that number is, normalized by number of BTC transactions that take place today, and scaled by the total number of financial payment transactions.

xputer 5y ago

Alternative title: Bitcoin emits almost 2% of the CO2 emitted by the entire world's military industrial complex.

mikestew 5y ago

Yeah, I don't think that headline is as positive as its writer thinks it is. To parrot other commenters, "holy cow, bitcoin is emitting almost 2% of what the world's militaries crank out? And not even an F-35 to show for it?"

rspeele 5y ago

People are always spreading FUD like this about the military industrial complex but you have to keep in mind, it emits less than 2% of all the carbon in the known universe. So it's actually pretty green when you look at it like that. Also, I get a lot of shit for driving a Hummer but it really has way less emissions than the Maersk shipping fleet, so checkmate libtards.

imtringued 5y ago

Where can I sign up for my physical property to be protected by the blockchain?

Blackstone4 5y ago

This is really reaching...feels like someone trying to justify an ideology...

JoeyBananas 5y ago

All things are trivial when you compare them to the size of the entire military industrial complex. This comparison is absolutely meaningless. The simple fact is that bitcoin consumes something like an entire nuclear powerplant of power continuously, and this has a non-trivial environmental impact. The real problem with bitcoin is that it entirely removes the safety net provided by regulated currency. It's good for nothing except drug deals and speculation.