Interessante conversazione tra Evgeny Morozov e Sanneke Kloppenburg [1]
La parte che "mi piace" di più è comunque la fine:
There is, of course, a third, even more radical possibility: the boycott
of anything related to blockchains and cryptocurrencies, not least
because they have a huge environmental impact. Some scholars, like Pete
Howson, for example, have called for global bans (or least limitations)
on crypto-mining due to their disastrous impact on emissions (which we
probably still underestimate). So, there’s always the option of moving
from “blowing up a pipeline” in the colorful formulation of Andreas Malm
to “blowing up a blockchain.” What are you thoughts on this more radical
option?
Blockchain, like many other digital technologies, does have a huge
environmental footprint. There is now an increasing effort to develop
guidelines and regulations for the responsible use of digital
technologies, for example by the EU and by standard setting
organisations. The goal of such guidelines and regulations is to
mitigate the societal implications of digital technology. The harmful
environmental impacts of digital technologies, however, do not get the
same amount of attention yet.
Often the energy consumption of technologies, but also the more systemic
environmental risks of using digital technologies, is an externality,
which remains invisible and hard to quantify. This is a serious problem,
which goes beyond the case of the blockchain, as it also applies to
Artificial Intelligence, for example. It is crucial to better integrate
sustainability in these efforts to regulate the societal impact of
digital technology. The sustainability aspects of technologies should
not be an afterthought, but taken into account already when a technology
is proposed or designed.
A.
[1]
https://the-crypto-syllabus.com/sanneke-kloppenburg-on-climate-cryptogovernance/
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