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I’m surprised that Apple, as a company that had been carbon neutral since 2020 and had pledged to protect the environment hadn’t banned any use of Bitcoins from

I’m surprised that Apple, as a company that had been carbon neutral since 2020 and had pledged to protect the environment hadn’t banned any use of Bitcoins from their platform altogether. Crypto carbon footprint is mind-boggling, estimates are 200 million tonnes of CO2 since the launch, not including the CO2 emitted to manufacture the hardware. Coinbase, that popularised all that mining to the general public should be considered as evil as other large CO2 emitters. And worse, all of these carbon emissions are for nothing, crypto seem only to be contributing to more exchanges crashes, fraud, money laundering and crime. With nothing to show on the positive side.

Mistletoe 4y ago
You are confusing Bitcoin with crypto. Ethereum uses drastically less energy after it transitioned to proof of stake. Many other cryptocurrencies are similar. https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption Nor do I agree with your assessment of banning Bitcoin because its power usage doesn’t match what we would like. I assume we all somewhat believe in the free market and the free market is solving this problem. Bitcoin price appreciation has been anemic at best and is only about 2% over the SP500 (+54%) in the past five years. Ethereum is quite a different story. +177%. Innovation is working. How much power and materials are wasted when Apple releases incremental changes with a new number each year to resell the same thing to materialistic buyers annually? Should they ban themselves for the greater good of the planet? I’d say so. https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/apples-colossal-e-waste-timebomb/ https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/apples-colossal-e-w... >Assuming the ecosystem was made up entirely of iPhones, an iPhone, on average, weighs 150g and are 130mm long. This means that you're looking at a pile of iPhones weighing 250,000 metric tons (the Empire State Building weighs in at roughly 330,000 metric tons), and if laid end-to-end would circle the Earth more than five times. And that’s just the e-waste. How much energy went into making them, how many dollars were wasted paying salaries and gas etc.?
- startupsfail 4y ago
  Crypto is bound to bitcoin. There is nothing that is holding that house of cards besides the bitcoins. As Ethereum and other coins do not have the cap. And near any investment into crypto contributes to the environmental damage from bitcoins. You can read Apple’s environmental report. And read the recent publications that analyse the environmental impact of crypto. And one of the biggest moves that Apple and Google can do as companies, to lessen the environmental impact is actually banning bitcoins and crypto. As someone who cares about the environment, I advocate for it. I don’t have any investments to Apple or Google or Bitcoins. Please, disclose any crypto investments, should you advocate for these.
cft 4y ago
I would recommend banning Netflix first while you are at it: data centers providing Netflix streaming services would consume around 370 TWh per year (Kamiya 2020) [1] That's not counting all the client devices power consumption while watching it. While BTC uses 87 TWh. [2] 1. https://blogs.salleurl.edu/en/energy-consumption-data-center#:~:text=Another%20recent%20claim%20is%20that,per%20year%20(Kamiya%202020) https://blogs.salleurl.edu/en/energy-consumption-data-center.... 2. https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index
- p1necone 4y ago
  Link 1 only references that claim to debunk it, mentioning that estimated energy usage from all datacenters in the world is less than 370 TWh.
  - yesenadam 4y ago
    True, it says "this value is 1.8 times larger than the 205 TWh estimated for all of the world’s data centers combined, which provide society with myriad other information services beyond just streaming Netflix videos."
mejutoco 4y ago
If you are going down this route, you can also consider the environmental impact of electronics and aluminum production, which takes a lot of energy (and pollutes too). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting#Environmental_issues_of_aluminium_smelters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting#Environment...
- cromulent 4y ago
  True. Apple has at least been making efforts to use recycled aluminum - 59% last year. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/04/apple-expands-the-use-of-recycled-materials-across-its-products/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/04/apple-expands-the-use...
- startupsfail 4y ago
  What are the actual positives from crypto? Had any been demonstrated? I see a lot of positives in having an iPhone. Say, my children can video-call their mom when she is travelling. Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that worth the environmental impact, especially considering that Apple is carbon-neutral? What are the positives of crypto? I haven’t noticed any for 10 years it had been around. Only exchange crashes and hacks like MtGox, Fed investigators having to fight Silk Road and the crazy near-fraud exuberance of FTX and alike.

Mistletoe 4y ago

You are confusing Bitcoin with crypto. Ethereum uses drastically less energy after it transitioned to proof of stake. Many other cryptocurrencies are similar. https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption Nor do I agree with your assessment of banning Bitcoin because its power usage doesn’t match what we would like. I assume we all somewhat believe in the free market and the free market is solving this problem. Bitcoin price appreciation has been anemic at best and is only about 2% over the SP500 (+54%) in the past five years. Ethereum is quite a different story. +177%. Innovation is working. How much power and materials are wasted when Apple releases incremental changes with a new number each year to resell the same thing to materialistic buyers annually? Should they ban themselves for the greater good of the planet? I’d say so. https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/apples-colossal-e-waste-timebomb/ https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/apples-colossal-e-w... >Assuming the ecosystem was made up entirely of iPhones, an iPhone, on average, weighs 150g and are 130mm long. This means that you're looking at a pile of iPhones weighing 250,000 metric tons (the Empire State Building weighs in at roughly 330,000 metric tons), and if laid end-to-end would circle the Earth more than five times. And that’s just the e-waste. How much energy went into making them, how many dollars were wasted paying salaries and gas etc.?

startupsfail 4y ago
Crypto is bound to bitcoin. There is nothing that is holding that house of cards besides the bitcoins. As Ethereum and other coins do not have the cap. And near any investment into crypto contributes to the environmental damage from bitcoins. You can read Apple’s environmental report. And read the recent publications that analyse the environmental impact of crypto. And one of the biggest moves that Apple and Google can do as companies, to lessen the environmental impact is actually banning bitcoins and crypto. As someone who cares about the environment, I advocate for it. I don’t have any investments to Apple or Google or Bitcoins. Please, disclose any crypto investments, should you advocate for these.

cft 4y ago

I would recommend banning Netflix first while you are at it: data centers providing Netflix streaming services would consume around 370 TWh per year (Kamiya 2020) [1] That's not counting all the client devices power consumption while watching it. While BTC uses 87 TWh. [2] 1. https://blogs.salleurl.edu/en/energy-consumption-data-center#:~:text=Another%20recent%20claim%20is%20that,per%20year%20(Kamiya%202020) https://blogs.salleurl.edu/en/energy-consumption-data-center.... 2. https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index

p1necone 4y ago
Link 1 only references that claim to debunk it, mentioning that estimated energy usage from all datacenters in the world is less than 370 TWh.
- yesenadam 4y ago
  True, it says "this value is 1.8 times larger than the 205 TWh estimated for all of the world’s data centers combined, which provide society with myriad other information services beyond just streaming Netflix videos."

mejutoco 4y ago

If you are going down this route, you can also consider the environmental impact of electronics and aluminum production, which takes a lot of energy (and pollutes too). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting#Environmental_issues_of_aluminium_smelters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting#Environment...

cromulent 4y ago
True. Apple has at least been making efforts to use recycled aluminum - 59% last year. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/04/apple-expands-the-use-of-recycled-materials-across-its-products/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/04/apple-expands-the-use...
startupsfail 4y ago
What are the actual positives from crypto? Had any been demonstrated? I see a lot of positives in having an iPhone. Say, my children can video-call their mom when she is travelling. Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that worth the environmental impact, especially considering that Apple is carbon-neutral? What are the positives of crypto? I haven’t noticed any for 10 years it had been around. Only exchange crashes and hacks like MtGox, Fed investigators having to fight Silk Road and the crazy near-fraud exuberance of FTX and alike.