The network uses the same amount of energy whether a block has transactions or not. Surely you see how that would actually help your “I hate energy use” argument if you actually made that one. Your argument is a common argument though, its incompatible with the more accurate argument.

Secondly, trading for speculation occurs offchain, meaning most speculators are not transacting on the network.

Its fairly useless as solely an observation, mining farms often also do other things with byproducts, so even if the crux of this conversation relies on a futile effort of comparing relative utility of "entertainment" or "bitcoin", it would be inaccurate either way