I buy Bitcoin BECAUSE I’m an environmentalist
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First, lets preface this by saying that “environmentalism” is neither a left nor right thing. Rupert Murdoch might have taught some people to hate but it really has more to do with understanding human impacts and the hidden costs of business than it does politics.
I learnt about Bitcoin on the first day. Spent half the day trying to figure out where the source code was or how to compile it, then moved on with life.
Then for the next few years I thought to myself “It’s a waste, we can’t just burn that energy for nothing of value”. Relatives asked over xmas dinner what I though, I told them. I wasn’t a stanch objector but I also was very sceptical and dismissive.
One thing which expanded my understanding was this [“talk by Gunter Pauli on what he calls The Blue Economy”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W73_kGaDb5U). The idea being that everything “green” is expensive. We have boutique products or difficult supply channels which profess to be “green” but if they’re expensive and exclusive then this can not possibly be any kind of solution for the future.
**Instead good business should run like an ecosystem. Waste should be converted into new revenue streams. In doing so positive outcomes for habitat should be cheap and readily accessible.**
This is where Bitcoin comes into environmentalist thinking, it adds revenue to waste. Without revenue being attached to waste there is no commercial imperative to adopt any kind of practice to consume such waste.
In the global economy we find ourselves in, the only way change is affected is through profit. You can’t force people to do things, you can’t subsidise your way to meaningful change. The only thing which works is having businesses exploit opportunities for profit.
Through this mechanism Bitcoin is increasing grid efficiency and providing a consumer of last resort for greenfield renewable projects. This kind of change was difficult to even dream of 10 years ago let alone 20. Many thought that consumption for consumption’s sake would continue to consume the world’s resources without paying any of the hidden costs.
Now we have way by which energy production can be cleaned up at a profit. This is world changing on more levels than the value provided by a censorship resistant, decentralised, permissionless, trustless ledger.
Cryptocurrency
