Bitcoin worse for the climate than beef, say economists | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoin worse for the climate than beef, say economists

theregister.com

23 pointssamizdis14 comments

Beef isn't bad for the climate any more than the cattle that were present before humankind showed up to invent livestock. Cattle eats plants that largely obtain their carbon from the atmosphere. They emit CO2 and methane, the latter of which degrades after ~12 years forming CO2, meaning cattle has and always been a part of the atmospheric carbon cycle. The only aspect of livestock that can be bad for the climate is the fossil fuels used in the transportation of live animals and slaughtered animal meat.

Yeah, no shit is using fossil fuels, which unleashes carbon from earth's crust, is worse for the environment than beef.

Of course that's not really something the author of this article from The Register is even considering. Even the paper seems to treat all CO2 emissions as identically damaging to the climate, which is counterscientific.

> cattle has and always been a part of the atmospheric carbon cycle

Could that be ignoring the the sheer number of cattle used in industrial beef production?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263979/global-cattle-pop...

Assuming GP is correct, why would the number of cattle make much of a difference?

If the carbon emitted by them was previously removed from the same atmosphere that's receiving them, isn't this a well balanced system where no new carbon reaches the atmosphere?

Plants don't absorb methane emissions.

True, no new carbon is added to the atmosphere. Methane as a GHG is worse for the environment though afaik.

I see. So is the problem with the volume of cattle that there's a lot more methane built-up before it's able to break down?

Are there good numbers on that? I believe so far everything I've read adds up everything and muddies the water a bit.

there's a lot more cattle now that it is raised industrially on deforested land. For example, the UK was entirely covered in largely impenetrable forest before the roman invasion, and only when the vikings showed up with the iron axe was land cleared for farming.

> Beef isn't bad for the climate any more than the cattle that were present before humankind showed up to invent livestock.

That is without taking in account that there are 1 billion cows around the world today, eating 10x the necessary soy/ corn, drinking water, pissing and shitting a soup of antibiotics and harmful bacteria. All this with what purpose?

Could Bitcoin miners be built into solar roofs?

No matter how big of a battery you put under a solar roof, there will always be some times when the sun shines while the battery is already full.

Then a Bitcoin miner could use the free energy.

From what I understand lots of mining operations are in places with cheap wind or hydro power anyway. But obviously that isn’t some iron law.

Solar power where I am gets used to charge batteries true but excess goes into the grid where it can be used for better things than mining coinz.

Why would I get my climate opinions from an economist? I prefer getting my opinions from politicians.

Discussion yesterday on the same study: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33023115

There have been many studies over the years done on bitcoin's impact on the environment.

Everything published about bitcoin's alleged threat to the planet, take into account none of them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com