To quote a movie that I consider one of the better B movies out there, Wayne's World, and not to be rude: 'Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.'  I have no idea what the inventor(s) of crypto were thinking, they either gave no thought to the environmental cost or just didn't care, I'm assuming the latter.  If I were a systems-level programmer, I'd like to create a virus that would corrupt as many blockchain ledgers as I could and unleash it on the world.