We’re talking about Bitcoin here because the news is about Bitcoin, it doesn’t mean we don’t care about reducing emissions in other areas. There are articles on HN regularly about EVs, synthetic meat, etc.

One thing that sets POW apart, though, is how it is designed to resist efficiency improvements through the difficulty adjustment mechanism. When hashrate per watt goes up with efficiency improvements, the network difficulty goes up to compensate, so more efficient hardware does not improve the efficiency of the system.

Such a boorish attitude that Bors made a specific version of Mister Gotcha just for you:

https://twitter.com/thenib/status/1098281126743937031

If you think the comic is hyperbole, I've literally had people say "but you exhale CO2, AHA!" to me when I've suggested we need more people on bicycles for personal transportation.

The fact that bicycles are the most energy-efficient form of personal transit? Irrelevant, apparently, because we exhale CO2.

The climate crisis will solve itself when flying, eating meat, gas guzzling cars, etc. are impossible to use because the climate crisis has made life an (as of today) essentially unimaginable hellscape. Sure it’ll be a few centuries of abject misery but as a result the world’s population will contract a lot and things will “reset.”

If people today aren’t willing to change their lives (and they clearly aren’t), then it’s time to enjoy the ride and hope we die (fingers crossed) before things get awful (which they will).

Hey, air conditioning doesn't belong on that list. It uses a lot of energy but it also significantly improves quality of life in hot and humid regions of the planet. And unlike the other items on your list, there's no ethical or intrinsically pollutive aspect to it. Also lots of developments in newer more energy efficient compressors and DC ACs with smarter control algorithms meant to run with solar.

From a purely practical political point of view, none of those things can be banned outright without an _enormous_ political backlash, so the approach has to be slow improvement and phaseout. Crypto-mining, on the other hand, could be banned tomorrow, with virtually no political fallout.