Yes, I know this energy is securing the network, which is of course very important.
But shouldn't we try to find a way to minimize this energy consumption. Shouldn't we be looking for alternative methods? Maybe even something like Proof of Stake? There has to be a better way.
Proof of Stake doesn't work, it's not secure and no one managed to fixed it, despite many attempts. Same for all other alternative consensus algorithms. If someone will present a new algorithm and prove its security and it will be as good as PoW, then it could be adopted by Bitcoin. But it might never happen.
I personally don't care about Bitcoin's footprint, it's way smaller than many useless activities out there.