Hacker News Reader

Comment by forgetfulness | Hacker News Reader

The government should step in when the market can't serve the needs of society, in this case it's cryptocurrency enthusiasts and profiteers not paying for the externalities, causing a detriment to society. A carbon tax scheme aimed directly at cryptocurrency could be another solution, but it sounds like something that would be way more work to enforce.

View on HN

> A carbon tax scheme aimed directly at cryptocurrency

Why not a carbon tax scheme for everyone, period? This is what I'm asking.

Why is cryptocurrency mining banned, while other "profiteers" (oil companies, gas-electric companies and so on) would not be penalized equally?

The US has among the highest per-capita carbon emissions.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?most_rec...

I would also welcome a global carbon tax levied at the source (on raw fossil fuel) as it would solve a lot of issues but it's just not gonna happen for political reasons.

Given that the global carbon tax is unlikely to happen, we might has well take action against proof of work now since it would still be a net benefit for mankind.

> why not a carbon tax scheme for everyone

Because the world is not fair and a general carbon tax will not get passed.

NYC is not the only city in NY state either, there's lots of sprawl in the rest of the state and punishing car driving that way would be political suicide, besides being a harsh and rushed measure to undo the costly blunder that was planning cities around private vehicle usage.

That's discounting a federal carbon tax that would go this deep, because that's certainly not happening.

Because perfect is the enemy of good. A global carbon tax is my dream as well, that won't ever stop me to defend the government trying to tax incredibly wasteful industries as a step towards that. It's not black-and-white.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com