Of course!!

I think this doom and gloom sentiment specifically about mining comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of what proof of work is, how it works, why it works, its purpose in securing the network, and so on. People think it's just some unnecessary, arbitrary computing power that isn't needed. But the truth is that it is the backbone of what makes a blockchain secure, and it still has a number of significant advantages over POS, DPOS, etc. You could debate which is better, and there may be an argument that other consensus systems are better, but that's a whole different conversation.

And just as an aside, do the people complain about it not use electricity? Or gas? Of course they do. So, what, you get to decide how much electricity you can use, and how much everyone else should be using, but they can't decide for themselves? Who make you the all-knowing electricity king? This whole thing drives me bananas.

edit - there is also a lot of talk about how pow mining is incentivizing people to find more efficient electricity sources...