Your question comes loaded with the assumption that all energy production is equal. In reality, energy harvested from hydro or geothermal may have lots of value for proof of work processes, but they don't have lots of value for someone living far away from the hydro or geothermal plant.

There are other energy consumers than can be located next to cheap energy, like aluminium production. This alone explains why iceland is a significant exporter of energy-intensive manufactured products.

Well if you want to consider that an assumption, energy from coal has lots of value, if proof of work got profitable enough.

Which... it already has. Coal plants have been spooled up just to mine btc. The idea that we should continue or expand crypto mining is ludicrous, because it already has harmed the environment, even at its small market cap.

A currency should take less than .00001% of global energy consumption to run. Absolutely no reason to burn energy like this. Use proof of stake or just convert some other valuable entity like stock into currency.

Depends on which cryptocurrency you're talking about. Bitcoin? 0%. Monero? +Infinity.

The real question is: why do we still allow oil companies to exist when they're the ones responsible for much of the world's pollution? Because the USD is backed by oil.

> why do we still allow oil companies to exist

Probably because attempting to enforce an oil ban overnight would probably involve death counts in the 9-10 digits. That is why any attempt is going to be progressive, and we can all agree that it's not going nearly fast enough.

That question is kind of a diversion from the current discussion, though.

> That question is kind of a diversion from the current discussion, though.

It's really not. Cryptocurrencies have no real impact on the environment so discussing that is not really productive. Better to redirect discussion towards real problems which are actually destroying the planet. Problems which will never be properly solved because powerful people depend on their existence. The petrodollar, trade with China, etc.

> > That question is kind of a diversion from the current discussion, though.

> It's really not. [...] Better to redirect discussion

At some points the strings are getting too visible.

Redirection is not distraction. The topic is environmental impact. Discussing cryptocurrency's impact is pointless because it is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. People apparently believe cryptocurrency is some kind of high priority problem that needs to be dealt with ASAP. In reality, it's responsible for less than 1% of global energy consumption and pollution. Pointing this out ends that discussion.

People insist on posting this FUD. I get it, they're concerned about the environment. So let's talk about real problems instead. Such as the highly polluting chinese manufacturers which no doubt fabricated the hardware we are using to write our opinions.

The real distraction is this "cryptocurrencies kill the environment" idea.