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Bitcoin Mining Alone Could Raise Global Temperatures Above Critical Limit By 2033 (vice.com)

dmoberhaus writes: Researchers have found that if Bitcoin is adopted at rates similar to technologies like credit cards, its energy consumption could increase global temperatures by 2C in just 16 years. This is well beyond the limit of catastrophic climate change proposed by the UN. Motherboard spoke to an expert on Bitcoin and energy about the study's implications.

6 of 287 comments (clear)

  1. Bueno! Excellente' by Brett+Buck · · Score: 0, Troll

    One absurd fantasy pitted against another!

    1. Re:Bueno! Excellente' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      Man-made warming is not a fantasy. Maybe you've been getting high on Republican propaganda, which is not meant to be taken seriously.

  2. Both are Fantasy by medv4380 · · Score: -1, Troll

    Bitcoin will never get there. I could go into why increasing the cost of a financial transaction that much is impractical, or why Bitcoin can't handle that kind of transaction load. But it will fall on deaf ears to those who "believe." I can give someone a detailed response of why you shouldn't invest your retirement into Bitcoin when it's in a parabolic bubble, but "true believers" won't hear it.

    Global Warming is much the same. I can process the US Weather station dataset, and show how it's in agreement with the Tree Ring proxy dataset for NA. But because the North America Temperature, they assume is correct, contradicts the Tree Ring data, they cherry pick it out, and claim that after 1960 something else is impacting the tree ring data for North America. If you're a "true believer" the "Red Line" Mann presents as NA temperature cannot be contradicted, and any evidence that does is mute.

  3. Re:Stop lying by lgw · · Score: 0, Troll

    The climate models only work when man-made inputs are included. Without man-made inputs, the climate models are very different (ie: wrong after ~1970).

    Sure, but then the climate models were created to show the dangers of man-made inputs, so of course they show that. The guys who make them are fairly smart, after all, they're not going to make a model that shows that no one should care about their field.

    Of course human activity has some effect on the climate. But the climate isn't going to be stable no matter what we do - stable just isn't a normal property of the climate on any large time scale. The glaciers come and go every 100k years. I'm just as happy to not have them return this time (and they are 10k years overdue). There would be no Canada left to make fun of, can't have that!

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  4. Re:Stop lying by lgw · · Score: -1, Troll

    It's amazing how quickly a man will agree to a thing, when his job depends on that thing being true. Anyhow, models only ever give your assumptions back to you.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  5. Re:Stop lying by lgw · · Score: -1, Troll

    That's not how scientific models work. If models can fit the facts, then the models are effective.

    That merely shows consistency not predictive power, or even fasifyability. You can make up a dozen creation myths that fit all the known facts about the early universe, but that's not very practical. Fitting the facts is necessary, but not sufficient.

    Climate models these days have about two sigmas of predictive power. That's ... well, it's better than random guessing, so lets call it "a good beginning". The models last decade were much worse. Maybe they'll keep getting better.

    Science doesn't depend on anything in particular to be true. That's how science works. We try to figure out what is true. Nobody is paying scientists to prove something or another.

    Yeah, meanwhile in the real world proving that mankind has nothing to worry about, and in fact has no need for all these climate models or for the field as a whole to exist, well, that would not lead to continued employment.

    Did you not learn what "science" is in grade school? How can somebody be so clueless about something as fundamental as what science is?

    Oh you sweet summer child.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.