typewriter eyes

I am concerned, because for me the deep forest is connected in some way to the darkness deep in my heart. I feel that if it is erased, then the darkness inside my heart would also disappear, and my existence would grow shallow.

Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin provide a unique service: Financial transactions that don’t require governments to issue currency or banks to process payments. Writing in the Atlantic, Derek Thompson calls bitcoin an “ingenious and potentially transformative technology” that the entire economy could be built on — the currency equivalent of the internet. Some are even speculating that bitcoin could someday make the U.S. dollar obsolete.

But the rise of bitcoin is also happening at a specific moment in history: Humanity is decades behind schedule on counteracting climate change, and every action in this era should be evaluated on its net impact on the climate. Increasingly, bitcoin is failing the test.

Digital financial transactions come with a real-world price: The tremendous growth of cryptocurrencies has created an exponential demand for computing power. As bitcoin grows, the math problems computers must solve to make more bitcoin (a process called “mining”) get more and more difficult — a wrinkle designed to control the currency’s supply.

Today, each bitcoin transaction requires the same amount of energy used to power nine homes in the U.S. for one day. And miners are constantly installing more and faster computers. Already, the aggregate computing power of the bitcoin network is nearly 100,000 times larger than the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers combined.

The total energy use of this web of hardware is huge — an estimated 31 terawatt-hours per year. More than 150 individual countries in the world consume less energy annually. And that power-hungry network is currently increasing its energy use every day by about 450 gigawatt-hours, roughly the same amount of electricity the entire country of Haiti uses in a year.

That sort of electricity use is pulling energy from grids all over the world, where it could be charging electric vehicles and powering homes, to bitcoin-mining farms. In Venezuela, where rampant hyperinflation and subsidized electricity has led to a boom in bitcoin mining, rogue operations are now occasionally causing blackouts across the country. The world’s largest bitcoin mines are in China, where they siphon energy from huge hydroelectric dams, some of the cheapest sources of carbon-free energy in the world. One enterprising Tesla owner even attempted to rig up a mining operation in his car, to make use of free electricity at a public charging station.

I spent five weeks at the firm’s newest warehouse in Tilbury, Essex, armed with a secret camera bought from Amazon’s own website.

I found staff asleep on their feet, exhausted from toiling for up to 55 hours a week.

Those who could not keep up with the punishing targets faced the sack – and some who buckled under the strain had to be attended to by ambulance crews.

The plant, with no natural light, is flooded with fluorescent bulbs – night and day have no meaning.

Many of the clocks have been covered over with tape by employees desperate not to be reminded how long is left of their shift. But time still rules here – a new package must be sealed and ready to go every 30 seconds.

Whatever the hour thousands of workers are racing to hit goals set by computers monitoring their every move. In my five weeks I saw staff struggling to meet impossible targets, in constant fear of the sack.

Two half-hour breaks were the only time off my feet, but it was barely enough time to race to the canteen and wolf down some food to keep my energy up.

“The emergency responders of Licking County, Ohio, are under strain. At least once a day, a medical unit from West Licking Fire Station 3 makes a run to the Amazon.com Inc. warehouse 3.1 miles away, in the township of Etna, about 20 miles east of Columbus. The calls for routine medical issues that occur in grueling warehouse jobs come at all hours, says Steve Little, the fire district administrator. Shortness of breath. Chest pains. Myriad minor injuries. During the busy holiday season, he says, the warehouse sometimes issues multiple emergency calls a day.Amazon isn’t helping cover the costs. Under the deal the company negotiated in 2015 with local officials and the state’s private economic development agency, JobsOhio, it’s paying no property taxes to Licking County for 15 years. As part of a two-warehouse deal, the state gave Amazon $17 million in tax incentives, and JobsOhio handed over $1.5 million in cash, funded with income from the state’s liquor monopoly. The new facilities are “almost a million square feet we have to protect, but we get no extra money,” Little says. “We have no voice in these deals, and we get no cash. Our residents are being forced to pay instead.” In November, voters in Little’s district will be asked to approve a five-year, $6.5 million property tax levy to keep the fire department operating.”