Environmentalists sound alarm at US politicians’ embrace of cryptocurrency – By Katharine Gammon (The Guardian) / Nov 18 2021
Bitcoin and similar blockchain-based currencies require huge amounts of power, predominantly generated from fossil fuels
The incoming mayor of New York City thinks cryptocurrency and blockchain technology are the future. Eric Adams has advocated to reshape the city into a crypto hotspot, with crypto being taught in schools. He also plans to take his first three paychecks in bitcoin payment.
Adams said in an interview that bitcoin was the “new way of paying for goods and services throughout the entire globe” and that schools “must” teach the technology behind it, as well as “this new way of thinking”.
He’s not alone in America. The mayor of Miami announced in February that the city plans to accept tax payments in bitcoin and let employees draw their salary in the cryptocurrency. Crypto conferences like Bitcoin 2021 – billed as the biggest bitcoin event in history – have chosen Miami as their host city because the area has rolled out the red carpet for this industry.
But not everyone is onboard with the crypto giddiness being expressed by America’s political class. Mining cryptocurrency is notoriously environmentally unfriendly, and in an era of rapid climate crisis, increasing the use of the technology could be hazardous.
