By this point, it’s hard to argue that humanity is really hard on our planet. Our use of resources, carbon footprint, and destruction of the natural world is wreaking havoc on other species, the weather, and the global temperature. If we want to work toward a more sustainable planet, we’re going to have to focus on the goal of becoming carbon neutral.
With many of our activities shifting online, it may be good news for the environment. While we still use a huge amount of energy and resources to live in a connected world, using the internet can allow us to cut down on commuting, paper production, and other activities that used to take place in person.
Cryptocurrency (virtual currency, like Bitcoin) might not seem like a tool for helping us to become carbon neutral, but the technology that powers Bitcoin has the potential to help us track and reduce carbon emissions. Here’s how cryptocurrency could help us reach that goal faster.
Current Update on Earth’s Carbon Footprint Issue
Unfortunately, we have a long way to go when it comes to getting our carbon footprint under control. Individual actions matter, but industrial footprints will ultimately have to come down dramatically in order to slow climate change down. Right now, global carbon emissions need to come down by 29-32 gigatonnes to meet the Paris Agreement’s targets for fighting climate change.
The good news is that technology that’s already been developed might be able to help. Blockchain technology, which powers Bitcoin, the most popular global cryptocurrency, can help increase transparency and track carbon emissions.
How Blockchain & Engineering Optimizations Could Help Diminish Carbon Footprint
Organizations are less likely to take steps toward neutrality when they’re not being held accountable. Blockchain could be used for collective reporting, allowing organizations all over the world to report their emissions while establishing a reliable, standardized calculation method. This would make it easier to coordinate truly effective efforts toward becoming carbon neutral while holding organizations accountable.
Calculating and reporting carbon footprints is just one part of the process, of course. Once that data is in hand, organizations have to be willing to take action. For some organizations, that means engineering their daily processes to become more sustainable. This is usually a task for experienced environmental engineers, who are trained to come up with carbon-friendly solutions to all kinds of problems.
Food Access –Another Way Blockchain Could Improve the Environment
Agriculture provides us with enough food to feed our world, but it has some environmental downsides. Aside from the environmental destruction and high water use that occurs in the production of food, we have to acknowledge that we currently produce more food than we need in the United States, with much of it going to waste or not reaching people who need it the most.
People are going hungry in America, despite our surplus, and many live in food deserts. By simply providing better access to healthy food in vulnerable communities and using data tools like blockchain to assess needs in different regions, we could cut down on food waste in landfills and improve the environment—while making sure that everyone has enough to eat.
A bonus? Healthcare costs and waste go down when people have access to healthier food! By reducing waste and allocating resources according to data, we can make life better for underprivileged communities while simultaneously improving the environment.
What Do the Experts & Data Say?
We have to take action quickly if we want to save our biodiversity and our quality of life globally. Blockchain won’t singlehandedly press the brakes on climate change, but the transparent and reliable data it can help manage will help organizations and governments take the most effective action and hold one another accountable. Blockchain, combined with other tools like predictive analytics, might hold the key to acting quickly and making meaningful reductions in our global carbon emissions.
In the race against climate change, we have to turn to the experts and the data to guide us. We have to rely on science and use data to work toward a carbon-neutral world or we will continue to destroy the future and present of our planet. Getting everyone on board won’t be easy—but it is necessary.