Furthermore, millions would be affected if bitcoin were to go offline tomorrow. Particularly people living in authoritarian states[1], or people who do not have access to traditional banking services.
[0] https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1414065840157347840?s=2... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jul/31/out-of-co...
Not to defend the cruise lines, but that quote appears bogus. The tweet you cite refers to a "carbon footprint", in response to a quote about particulate emissions (using sulfur dioxide as an example).
This [1] puts total cruise line CO2 emissions in 2017 (first source I picked, but I imagine the number won't have changed much) at 21K tons, whereas a recent Reuters article [2] put Bitcoin at 22,000K tons of CO2.
If the above data is correct, then Bitcoin is responsible for more than 1000x as many CO2 emissions as cruise ships.
[1] https://www.tourismdashboard.org/explore-the-data/cruise-shi...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/how-big-is-bitcoins-carbo...
Another option would be continually adjusting the block reward to not over subsidize mining.
The amount issued doesn't change, but the expected value of a number of hashes changes significantly.
The issue is that there is now too much electricity & therefore carbon emissions being spent on security the bitcoin blockchain. If the bitcoin community could adjust this down for slightly lower 51% attack defense they might be able to avoid the pressure from outside groups.
But the bitcoin community has shown it's self unable to make changes or establish any consensus outside of what is already believed.
But regardless by allowing transaction outside of state control, crypto may indeed help some hard bitten business people but simultaneously helps a vast array of criminals, from ransomware gangs to corrupt third world officials expatriating bribes and theft.
Nobody here is trying to stop people in authoritarian states from using crypto.
Bringing up the authoritarian states is just a strawman.
The difference between crypto and things like agriculture or transportation is obvious. People need food and transportation. If crypto was eliminated entirely tomorrow, on average, no one would suffer - some would lose relative wealth but others would gain relative wealth. Unlike conventional financial markets even, it's hard to argue crypto provides any kind of incentive for efficiency.
Indeed, if crypto mining was punishingly taxed but crypto itself continued, almost no one would suffer, including most crypto holders.