Energy consumption? Only a few percentage of total people in Bitcoin community are miners if that what's we are being concerned of here. Bitcoin is a digital currency therefore it has no direct relationship or effect to environmental problems. However, there's a tendency for indirect environmental issues concerning energy consumption. But practically speaking, should it be really solely blamed for Bitcoin itself? If you are a Bitcoin miner, would your energy consumption in each mining rigg would be limited to mining alone? I highly doubt.
Does Bitcoin have the potential to impact climate change?
Any industry or sector that consumes energy will produce emissions, and bitcoin mining is no exception. But the problem here is that the climate change impact from bitcoin mining is negligible compared to many other sectors, but many people are over-exaggerating it and cause unnecessary misunderstandings.
Bitcoin is also a field that is bringing benefits like many other industries and the benefits it brings to us are even greater so consuming energy or creating emissions is acceptable.
Whether we have bitcoin or not, climate change will still happen, don't just blame bitcoin or any other field, instead it is us humans who are destroying this earth.
Climate change is affected by many factors and energy consumption related issues are just one of it but we cannot simply put it in general. If it is with climaate change there are more toxic chemicals and smoke that destroys our environment which should be given more attention than with Bitcoin alone as a digital currency.