I'll be honest, it's getting kind of boring debunking the same nonsense every few months whenever a different news network or blog site picks it up and runs a story without really understanding the facts.
You know that is how news stories nowadays are operating, they are not after the truth, they want sensational stories, the ones that raise eyebrows and make a good headline. Vulture basics.
Firstly, electricity consumption is irrelevant - source of electricity production is what we should be interested in. It doesn't matter if bitcoin uses 5 gazillion terawatt hours if all 5 gazillion of them come from 100% renewable sources.
The problem here is that not every mines consume TW of electricity from renewable resources, as of now, research says that globally we are still dependent on coal power plants despite advances in renewable resources, one good proof is Germany planning to dismantle all their Nuclear Power Plants in exchange for coal power plants.
Secondly, the website that that article is based on assumes that all bitcoin mining is using the average global electricity. This is not the case, and we know that bitcoin mining actually uses almost 80% renewable sources. Therefore the CO2 production will be significantly lower than this article makes out.
Again with the sensationalism, they throw in numbers to make it look bad.
Thirdly, the CO2 that bitcoin mining produces is literally inconsequential. Streaming online pornography accounts for 30x more CO2 production than bitcoin does. This is just porn. No mention of Netflix, or Disney Plus, or Amazon Video, or Hulu, or any of the major steaming services that use magnitudes more electricity. I've never once seen a news article about how we could all save the planet if we just stopped watching so much porn.
What about other massive contributions to global CO2? Console gaming? PC gaming? Leaving devices on standby? Printing, moving around, and destroying trillions of notes of fiat currency? Electricity to power every bank branch and ATM in the world? Hell, even just the annual beef consumption of 5% of the US population produces more CO2 than bitcoin does.
On the porn part, there was a meme back then about Pornhub planting trees for a video watched, I don't know if it is true though. If we were to blame other causes then we will not be different from this news networks, we have to be the big guy in this part.