An increase in gas fees doesn't correspond to an increase in energy consumed/CO2 produced. The network was chugging along at its usual hash rate like always, bu

An increase in gas fees doesn't correspond to an increase in energy consumed/CO2 produced. The network was chugging along at its usual hash rate like always, but this sudden demand for transactions creates a bidding war for the existing gas (computation) available. The fact that the gas rates rose so high shows that the network's energy consumption didn't increase. Of course, in the long term, exorbitant gas fees produce some incentive for more miners to join and burn more CO2.