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There's lots of ways to turn electricity into money. Bitcoin is one of the easiest but you're not going to stop climate change or make a reasonably impact on th

There's lots of ways to turn electricity into money. Bitcoin is one of the easiest but you're not going to stop climate change or make a reasonably impact on the growing energy demands of civilization by banning it. Better to focus on replacing all energy production with green sources and taxing polluters rather than trying to ban specific energy uses you don't like.

joshgrib 5y ago
This seems like a fair solution that could have the same impact - if the pollution tax is high enough and the mining profits are low enough then mining would no longer be profitable. At a minimum it at least makes sure people are "cleaning up after themselves" by paying to mitigate the damage they cause
- admax88qqq 5y ago
  Exactly, and then its not limited to just bitcoin, but any process that creates pollution (coal power, dirty manufacturing, forest removal, etc). If pollution stops being free, the market will finally be incentivized to reduce it.
  - joshgrib 5y ago
    This is totally how I feel, and it's even worse than that - we're still subsidizing fossil fuels, so we're not only NOT taxing the pollution, we're actually helping to make it cheaper for companies to do. I think step 1 should be stopping all the subsidies. I haven't actually seen the numbers before but this is pretty absurd: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Global-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Remain-Large-An-Update-Based-on-Country-Level-Estimates-46509 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Glo... > Globally, subsidies remained large at $4.7 trillion (6.3 percent of global GDP) in 2015 and are projected at $5.2 trillion (6.5 percent of GDP) in 2017 > coal and petroleum together account for 85 percent of global subsidies
    - admax88qqq 5y ago
      Absolutely insane. And people sometimes argue that renewables are only viable due to subsidies.
svara 5y ago
Unfortunately, that won't work. Bitcoin is designed so that material/energy approximately equal in value to mining revenue is wasted. What you waste it on is ultimately irrelevant.
- admax88qqq 5y ago
  Bitcoin can be designed however it wants, that doesn't magically grant it value. It's value is only based upon how much value people ascribe to it. And for that, I don't really care how what people ascribe to it, so long as they pay for the pollution they produce in the process.

joshgrib 5y ago

This seems like a fair solution that could have the same impact - if the pollution tax is high enough and the mining profits are low enough then mining would no longer be profitable. At a minimum it at least makes sure people are "cleaning up after themselves" by paying to mitigate the damage they cause

admax88qqq 5y ago
Exactly, and then its not limited to just bitcoin, but any process that creates pollution (coal power, dirty manufacturing, forest removal, etc). If pollution stops being free, the market will finally be incentivized to reduce it.
- joshgrib 5y ago
  This is totally how I feel, and it's even worse than that - we're still subsidizing fossil fuels, so we're not only NOT taxing the pollution, we're actually helping to make it cheaper for companies to do. I think step 1 should be stopping all the subsidies. I haven't actually seen the numbers before but this is pretty absurd: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Global-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Remain-Large-An-Update-Based-on-Country-Level-Estimates-46509 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Glo... > Globally, subsidies remained large at $4.7 trillion (6.3 percent of global GDP) in 2015 and are projected at $5.2 trillion (6.5 percent of GDP) in 2017 > coal and petroleum together account for 85 percent of global subsidies
  - admax88qqq 5y ago
    Absolutely insane. And people sometimes argue that renewables are only viable due to subsidies.

svara 5y ago

Unfortunately, that won't work. Bitcoin is designed so that material/energy approximately equal in value to mining revenue is wasted. What you waste it on is ultimately irrelevant.

admax88qqq 5y ago
Bitcoin can be designed however it wants, that doesn't magically grant it value. It's value is only based upon how much value people ascribe to it. And for that, I don't really care how what people ascribe to it, so long as they pay for the pollution they produce in the process.