In my opinion the bitcoin network needs to take responsibility and change so that it has a smaller footprint, it just isn't responsible to burn such a large amount of energy for such little utility.
what do you think the legacy banking system runs on, magical fairy dust? no, it runs on massive amounts of energy. same with gold mining, coin minting, etc. that's the correct lens to view bitcoin mining through.
this is fundamentally a
human problem, not a
bitcoin problem. if humans didn't need money, we wouldn't need dollars, gold,
or bitcoin.
until that problem is solved, the best we can do is steer energy consumption towards sustainable sources.