Don’t sacrifice our good work – New York Daily News

I am a father of three, caretaker of six, and a lifelong Northern New Yorker. I don’t have a college degree, but I work hard and recently found a great new career that has helped me grow in the tech industry, which is not easy to find upstate.

I have dozens of hardworking colleagues who all tell similar stories. Seeing friends and children forced to leave upstate New York due to lack of job options, looking for opportunities.

Unfortunately, New York policy makers recently moved to fire me and all my colleagues.

We work for Greenidge Generation, a cryptocurrency and power generation company in Yates County. New York State just enacted a law banning certain cryptocurrency businesses from launching through a moratorium, and the state is trying to shut us down by refusing to renew permits.

Losing amidst the celebrations of the closure of cryptocurrencies from lawmakers and environmental groups is a direct loss for people like me.

I used to work at a local bank. Not being highly educated, it was a dead end job. A friend told me about a cutting-edge technology business. Greenidge hired me. There is no real handbook on cryptocurrency, it’s all on-the-job training, so I was able to grow. I am currently a Cryptocurrency Datacenter Lead. My story here is typical.

And it’s the story that the critics are missing, and I don’t know why. But I know how it feels to be working here. We provide opportunities for people of all levels of education who don’t have many options upstate. I always hear people say that they just say,

We are working class and locals are finally learning something new and future focused. Our salaries are more than double the average for our area. The company offered to pay us to go back to school.

Everyone knows the trend line in upstate New York. The population is declining simply because there are not enough jobs. Lack of private investment. Greenidge and the cryptocurrency opportunity were beginning to buck the trend. The company invested his $100 million in Finger Lakes and brought something very unusual. It’s an opportunity for a better future for northern families like mine.

Rep. Anna Keres, one of the leaders of the anti-crypto activism, recently told the newspaper, “There is no good job argument.” I ask her and the Sierra Club attorneys to tell my colleagues, or her local IBEW members who work in Greenwich, or anyone of the about 80 local businesses that we spend millions of dollars on. ask to

Ms Keres would very coldly dismiss the value of our livelihoods under the false pretense that we are a significant threat to the state’s environmental goals, agriculture and tourism. Denying others who need to work upstate to be able to participate in the industry is elitism at its worst.

Our facility’s maximum emissions are less than 0.2% of the state’s ambitious emissions target for 2030. In a binding proposal to the state, we proposed an additional 40% reduction in permitted emissions, ultimately leading to zero carbon emissions much sooner than the state as a whole. But there has been silence from the country and opponents of cryptocurrencies.

The proposal matched the nationwide 40% emission cuts in President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and was widely praised by environmental leaders. In fact, EarthJustice, which has attacked Greenidge and the crypto industry relentlessly, hailed the federal law as “restored the confidence of the United States to lead the fight against climate change on the global stage.” So a 40% reduction in emissions is a big step for the country, but not in New York?

New York can certainly meet its climate goals while creating new careers upstate. For me, I see more opportunities in crypto and career growth if the state allows it. As a person of color, it’s very special to see my children working on the cutting edge of the economy.

Recently, I was able to bring them into our factory. They were just in awe. And when you grow up, you will start to see and understand cryptocurrencies. They will have pictures and memories of that visit and will look back and say: My father was part of that build. “

Hopefully, our state decision makers will understand what we have built here and how it presents an amazing opportunity to lead our region into the 21st century. increase.

Talton is the Crypto Data Center Team Lead at Greenidge Generation’s New York facility.