NFTs are setting the creative world alight. Are they also bad for the planet?

By this point, you’ve probably heard about NFTs — even if you still don’t really understand them.

They are the digital asset creating headlines globally for allowing artists to sell JPEGs or 30-second GIFs for tens of thousands or even millions of dollars.

On Friday, the artist Beeple set a new record when the auction house Christie’s sold his work Everydays — The First 5000 Days, a photo collage, for $US70 million ($90 million).

That was just the latest development in a burgeoning digital economy that has many in the visual art and music…