All my computing life I have been taught and taught students how to compute things in the most efficient way. It turns my stomach seeing that much computing power (and electrical power) wasted. 

same but then our entire economy is very wasteful http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-16/where-worlds-unsold-cars-go-die
I'm sure eventually we'll switch to a better crypto system or energy sources like thorium.
That zerohedge article really impressed me and made the wastefulness of our actions graspable for me. "Yay! We're building more cars, the economy is growing, elect us again!"
We need to end this "continuous growth paradigm" that is partly a consequence of (or at least intricately intertwined with) the type of money we use. Transitioning to using sound money is a big step towards becoming more resource efficient. The psychopathic powers that be are already shitting their pants regarding their debt regimes threatening to fall apart (Beligum), trying to start ww3 to get out of that deadlock they have maneuvered themselves into. I hope the people of the world will be prudent enough to see through the false flags (example: chemical attacks in syria last year) and violent provocations by payed mercenaries. I also hope our whistleblowers will keep informing us.
I think the easiest and most effective step we can take as people of the world in order to scale down our natural resource usage and to avoid bloody conflict is to transition to using crypto. It'll force governments into fiscal prudence eventually and it'll force actors making bad decisions to suffer the consequences of their actions, as it should be.