The Peter McCormack Show5 Dec 2022

A Climate Change Debate with Nate Harmon and Steve Barbour - WBD589

Nate Harmon is CEO and cofounder of OceanBit; Steve Barbour is CEO and founder of Upstream Data; both are Bitcoiners. In this interview, we debate climate change: the reliability of climate models, climate change mitigation, adaptation and the forecast inequality of climate change impacts.

- - - -

What Bitcoin Did has discussed both sides of the climate change debate with a number of esteemed guests. The reasoning is two-fold: firstly, one of Bitcoin's major attack vectors is energy use and associated climate change impacts; secondly, it is one of the major issues of our time, arguably the most pressing issue. These shows have either expressed one side or another, until now.

Bitcoiners are a broad church. That is an inherent strength. But is also brings its own internal pressures. Whilst there is broad consensus on Bitcoin's mission, there are divergent opinions on a host of other issues that this new form of money affects. None more so than climate change. Many believe in the need for fossil fuels to enable humans to continue to flourish; others argue that we need to rapidly pivot from fossil fuel reliance if we're to avoid an existential crisis.

However, the debate is not open-ended. There is a strong argument that the framing of the current discussion falls within agreed boundaries. It doesn't feel contentious to state both sides of the debate within the Bitcoin community agree that abundant energy is needed and that the climate is warming. The disagreement is focused on the rate of climate change and the approach to mitigation.

Obviously, whilst there is agreement that narrows the parameters of any debate, the outstanding issues are complex, contentious and critical. The stakes on both sides are high; discussion and compromise are vital. Can we within the community find common ground? Is it possible to attenuate the growing animosity around this subject? Can Bitcoiners lead the way in being open-minded, receptive and malleable to different ideas? Let's start engaging and find out.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(1087)

#209 - Johann Hari - We Built A World Humans Can’t Survive

Johann Hari is an internationally bestselling author and journalist whose work - including Stolen Focus, Lost Connections, and Chasing the Scream - delves into the structural and societal drivers behi...

7 Sep 2h 33min

#208 - Ann Pettifor - "A $40 Trillion Debt Crash Is Coming”

Ann Pettifor is a world-renowned political economist, author of The Production of Money, and former director of the Jubilee 2000 campaign, which successfully mobilised millions to cancel over $100 bil...

3 Sep 1h 19min

#207 - Eric Kaufmann - How 'Cultural Socialism' Destroyed Our Universities

Eric Kaufmann spent over two decades as a professor of politics studying demography, identity, and voting behaviour before leaving Birkbeck College to launch the Centre for Heterodox Social Science at...

1 Sep 1h 32min

#206 - Emad Mostaque - "Your Job's Economic Life Expectancy Ends In 2 Years"

Emad Mostaque founded Stability AI, built Stable Diffusion, and helped kick off the open-source generative AI explosion - before stepping down to build a new blueprint for human freedom as founder and...

28 Aug 1h 45min

#205 - Prof. Moran Cerf - "Did We Accidentally Build A Conscious AI?"

Moran Cerf spent twenty years recording single neurons inside the brains of conscious human beings and he still can't tell you what consciousness is. A former hacker turned neuroscientist, now a profe...

26 Aug 1h 10min

#204 - Dmitri Alperovitch - China's Cyber Sleeper Cells, Taiwan & The Second Cold War

Dmitri Alperovitch co-founded CrowdStrike, ran the investigation that first exposed Chinese state hacking to the world and predicted Russia's invasion of Ukraine months before it happened. He is now c...

22 Aug 1h 20min

#203 - Gregory Allen - Ex-DoD Official: "AI Is Now A Digital Nuclear Weapon"

Greg Allen has spent his career where AI meets national security. He wrote the landmark 2017 report on AI for the US intelligence community, served as Director of Strategy and Policy at the Pentagon's...

20 Aug 1h 34min

#202 - Barry S. Strauss - "We Are In The Final Stages Of Western Collapse"

Barry Strauss has spent four decades studying how empires rise and fall. A senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of Ten Caesars and Jews vs Rome, he argues the West is repeating a pat...

18 Aug 1h 15min