charlieknoles

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What a blast from the past. Tons of love to Rich Roll for sharing an excerpt from our conversation from 10 years ago.  It’s a huge honor to be featured alongside such brilliant minds as Yuval Noah Harari, Sharon Salzberg, and Dan Harris among many others!

If you came from the podcast, check out my meditation classes over at meditationteacher.org. Use the code peace+plants for a special gift to the RRP community.

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My favorite American fruit. Just found the grove in Queenie park in Missouri.

·         PawPaw “Asimina triloba”- Height is large shrub to small tree, up to 30ft tall.  Acceptable for planting near utility lines in dense shade.  Measured in spring 2015 a single tree in this grove gives out $23 in benefits yearly.  Fun fact: PawPaw extract has been used experimentally in cancer therapy and has been rated 300 times as potent as taxol, the other, better known plant extract.  The fruit is also known as the Ozark banana.  Human uses include food (fruits).

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Sledding with the youngling in Colorado.

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Mountain days in Colorado.

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No, cryptocurrency isn’t going to exacerbate climate change.

A few months ago we quietly started accepting cryptocurrency for payments at our meditation school.  When our first student signed up and paid using dogecoin 🤣 it was immediately clear that this is the future. The transfer was instantaneous, it required no middlemen, the fees were minimal, and most importantly it made us laugh that we were being paid with a currency named after a cute, dog-meme.  We’ve expanded the currencies we accept to include Bitcoin, dogecoin, Ethereum, Monero, BNB, and Zcash. We’re also incentivizing people to pay with crypto by giving an automatic 25% discount to anyone who pays with crypto. 

I believe that over time, cryptocurrencies will replace credit cards and cash for most transactions. Even at this early stage, I can run software on my own computer that can replace 90% of the functions of the banking and finance industries. It feels amazing to be a part of this revolution. I think we’re just at the beginning of something huge. I started playing with cryptocurrencies in 2015 and I’ve never been more optimistic about its future than I am today.

But what about the environment?

If you know me, then you know I’m an environmentalist. I care deeply about preserving natural ecosystems and ensuring a sustainable future for humans, and all beings on our shared planet. There have been a lot of headlines about the terrible impact of bitcoin on global climate. One thing is true, bitcoin miners use a lot of energy to power their rigs. When I started reading about bitcoin’s environmental impact I almost gave up on it. Thankfully, when I went to high school, I learned how to do basic mathematics. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be true for the journalists who’ve written about bitcoin. Let’s compare the energy use of bitcoin to the energy used by traditional banking. If you don’t like math, skip a few of paragraphs to the conclusion. If you love math, please check my numbers and make sure I’m correct.

First round.... Bitcoin! 

According to miner daily, a bitcoin-mining news site, bitcoin mining currently uses approximately 128 gigawatt hours per day, worldwide. This is a huge amount of energy and if you look at it without context, it’s understandable why eco-conscious people are concerned. But context is crucial, so let’s compare bitcoin with the systems it’s replacing. 

Second round...US Bank branches!

According to the world bank there were 62,350 bank branches in the USA in 2017. The energy star website surveyed 26,465 of these banks and found that the median, yearly, energy use of a bank branch in the USA is 266 kBTU/square foot with a total of 174 million square feet of properties included in the survey. Assuming that this is a representative sample of banks we can now do the math.

174 million sq ft / 26,465 gives us 6,575 sq ft. The average square footage of a US bank branch.

Multiply 6,575 sq ft with 62,350 to get 409,951,250 sq ft. An estimate of the combined square footage of all bank branches in the USA.

Multiply 409,951,250 sq ft by 266 kBtu/sq ft to get a staggering 109,047,032,500 kBtu. The yearly energy use of all US bank branches.

1 kBtu is equal to 0.0000002930711 GWh so lets do the conversion and divide by 365 to get a daily number. 

The combined, daily, energy-use of all US bank branches is 88 GWh. To put this into perspective, this is slightly more than the total daily output of 7 coal fired power plants. 

Conclusion

Worldwide bitcoin mining uses 128 GWh per day. Bank branches in the USA use 88 GWh of energy per day.*  This does not include data centers, credit card processors, bank office buildings, or facilities for other financial services. In other words bank branches in the USA alone, use 69%** of the energy of worldwide bitcoin mining. 

According to Statista there are an additional 174,000 bank branches in the European Union. According to the world bank there are an additional 203,000 bank branches in India alone. If we assume that these banks have a similar energy-use profile as the USA then the carbon impact of all bitcoin mining is a small fraction of the impact of bank branches. In fact, if our energy use assumptions hold true, then the combined bank branches in the USA, EU, and India use approximately 620 GWh of energy per day! This is roughly 4.8 times the energy used to mine bitcoin per day and we haven’t even included the other two largest population countries: China (pop. 1.4 billion) and Indonesia (pop. 275 million).

Other popular cryptocurrencies such as chia, dogecoin, and Ethereum are more energy efficient than bitcoin mining. Cryptocurrency mining is often performed on rigs that are powered by renewable energy since it is the cheapest form of energy available. Mining hardware and blockchain protocols are improving to become more energy efficient as financial incentives push miners to seek the highest performance at the lowest energy costs. But even if none of this was true, cryptocurrencies are today more energy efficient than the financial industries they are replacing.

You may argue that the carbon impact of cryptocurrency mining is additive to the financial industry and has not replaced it. However, according to all my linked sources above, the number of bank branches is decreasing worldwide. This is probably not caused by cryptocurrency adoption but it will drive it. As banks offer fewer services, at fewer locations, for higher fees, people will seek alternatives. With its ease of use, and expanding acceptance, cryptocurrencies are the obvious replacements. This same process will repeat for other sectors of the financial industry. As soon as we can get home loans, buy stocks, and defer payments using cryptocurrency then it’ll take over there as well.

The media has fed us a false narrative. The old-school financial industry is a corrupt, carbon-belching beast. As environmentalists we should be cheering about bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies replacing the finance industry. It’s a huge win for the planet.

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*This may not be a perfect apples to apples comparison since the energy used for bank branches includes heating and cooling which may be produced onsite by furnaces and generators. However, these small scale power plants often produce more carbon per unit of energy produced. Bitcoin mining on the other hand uses electricity alone which is often powered by non carbon-emitting sources. The comparison favors bank branches.

**Nice.

[charlieknoles]

Black sand magic. (at Bali, Indonesia)

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Hey turtle 🐢 (at Gili Air, Lombok, Indonesia)

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Sunset walk. (at Bali, Indonesia)

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California dreaming. I miss California. (at Venice, California)

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Mt. Agung eruption 🌋 this morning. (at Bali, Indonesia)

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Flores Indonesia. AKA PARADISE.

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Thank god I’m vegan. #TGIV. NYTimes: The Chemicals in Your Mac and Cheese

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Smoothie bowl time. (at Peloton Supershop)

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A few thoughts regarding the suicide of Chris Cornell

Now would be a great time to reach out to people you know who suffer from depression or have expressed suicidal thoughts in the past. Suicide has a contagious copycat quality to it. Chris was a hero to many people -especially men around my age who are statistically more likely to commit suicide- and when I listen back to his music there are such clear signs that he was in pain. "Fell on black days", "The day I tried to live", "Black hole sun". The songs are beautiful, in-depth, nuanced, and intelligent explorations of the dark thoughts that plague all of us. His raw emotionality and courage in expressing these feelings of dread and fear and transforming it into art was what made us all love him.

We all know people who are feeling similar feelings of pain. Sometimes they're people in our lives who are difficult to talk to or be around because of their negativity. Think for a moment about their best qualities. Think about the pain that good people go through and take a moment to reach out and ask how they're doing. I've known many people who have been on the verge of suicide and had chance moments of connection make them rethink their course.

Depression is a dark beast and your actions may not defeat it forever but every day that we can keep someone alive is a victory and we've gifted them another chance to live. It's likely that Chris thought about suicide many times before and didn't act on it. A couple of days ago he finally did it. Maybe nothing could have stopped him. After all he'd just played a sold out rock show to his adoring fans and spoke to his wife right before he died. But I can tell you from personal experience that there are few things worse than being close to someone who chooses suicide and knowing that you didn't reach out and give them a chance to live another day.

P.S Here's a charity devoted to Suicide prevention with a four star rating from charity navigator. A donation in honor of Chris Cornell could be a really nice thing to do if you have the means to do so. https://afsp.org/statement-american-foundation-suicide-prevention-chris-cornell/

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We went chasing waterfalls. (at Florence Falls)

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It's such an honor to be speaking on a panel with @caleyalyssa, @matthewkenneycuisine, @thetaoofdana, @jasonwachob, @christiebrinkley, and @jamesduigan!! Thank you ##BHWellth #LoveBevHills @lovebevhills (at Alo Yoga Store)