I agree with you. It’s not fair to harshly judge the energy consumption of the bitcoin network. How much electricity is wasted on running a computer or smartphone to look at Facebook and social media, or to watch mindless TV programs? Not to mention the wasted productivity? You also raised some other great examples of extreme energy waste. The list is endless.

Also, if cash is a representation of “energy”… isn’t the dilution of money by simply printing new money by governments a kind of energy theft from every person who holds that money?

I found this article that addresses your question about the energy consumed by banks — https://hackernoon.com/the-bitcoin-vs-visa-electricity-consumption-fallacy-8cf194987a50