is it really that polluting? :O: I find myself shocked, let me take a look.

Anyways, I think the real fear here is from govts. and their loss of control through fiat currency and transaction systems, honestly.

But that is an entirely different topic...

A single transaction uses the trivial energy it takes to power the device that signs the transaction and whatever trivial amount is required to transmit it to the network. Your quoted sources make the egregious error of considering the energy used to secure the network and protocol as the energy used to process transactions. This ignorant error has been pointed out many times already in the discussion around POW.