I misunderstood what you meant, but this argument still seems specious.
The people currently employed by the financial industry would not cease to exist if the financial industry did not need as many employees, they would find jobs elsewhere. The downstream effects of what people spend their wages on isn't part of the the actual impact of the industry they work for.
Yes, they would find jobs elsewhere, and their energy consumption and pollution would no longer go to support the finance industry. If you want to make a fair equilibrium comparison, compare the current state of affairs with a future state of affairs where the population is smaller by the amount of people who currently work for payment processors.
I'm really not understanding your argument here. We should decrease the worlds population by the number of people who currently work for financial institutions?
I’m not proposing we literally do that; I’m explaining how to fairly compare the resource consumption of Bitcoin to the resource consumption of the payment industry, factoring in opportunity costs.
The people currently employed by the financial industry would not cease to exist if the financial industry did not need as many employees, they would find jobs elsewhere. The downstream effects of what people spend their wages on isn't part of the the actual impact of the industry they work for.