Not making changes in the world?
The make a lot of changes before so they don't have to do them on shabbat. They make actually more changes than without shabbat, and in this case even more environmental damage.
The core set of rules comes from specific actions that were banned in the ancient Tabernacle on the Sabbath. Electricity use is not banned per se on the Sabbath (as electricity was not discovered several thousand years ago); instead, the core law of "do not fix things on the Sabbath" was ruled to ban completing circuits on the Sabbath once electricity became widespread; similarly, "do not break things on the Sabbath" covers breaking a circuit. The rules only cover actions performed by Jews during the Sabbath; they don't cover actions taken on other days even if those actions result in changes on the Sabbath, so for example setting up a timer to turn lights on or off is permissible as long as you set it up prior to the Sabbath. Ditto for these kinds of elevators.
The Sabbath rules have pretty much nothing to do with environmentalism or energy use.
- "do not fix things on the Sabbath" ban[s] completing circuits
- "do not break things on the Sabbath" covers breaking a circuit
sound extremely convoluted to me. A switch's express purpose is to break and complete circuits to direct current. It is part of the object's usage, part of the creator's intent on the object's utility. It has modes of operation where the circuit is broken and complete by design. The saner interpretation of this law IMO would be along the lines of "if a switch got stuck on a Sabbath, good luck on the energy bill, mate".
I have one of those trash cans with a pedal that opens the lid. It is a switch but none of it is electronic. Are Jews not allowed to operate these contraptions on a Sabbath too? It arguably introduces a break in the object, namely the opening for the trash can. Heck, does Jewish law even allow opening trash cans on a Sabbath, at all? By such broad applicability, the only difference between any lidded trash can (a closed object most of the time) and an electric circuit is the presence/absence of current. Can a Jew unlock padlocks on a Sabbath? What about opening doors?
(FINAL NOTE: HN mostly has charged---pun intended---discussions over things we deem ridiculous. Such discussion is NOT my intent here. I know J. Random Netizen like me isn't going to change Jewish culture in two paragraphs. I just wanted to waste actuations of my mechanical keyboard to register my astonishment and confusion over this interpretation.)
This is an excellent point and is a big reason why a lot of rabbis would not give "building" as an answer. Another answer commonly given is that electricity is like fire (made a lot more sense when "electricity" was 99.9% stuff like starting your car with a spark and incandescent lightbulbs) and lighting a fire is prohibited; this doesn't really hold much water anymore. Another reason given is that there's a rabbinic prohibition on "creating", but that doesn't really work because, like you said, all electric appliances are made to be turned off too. Basically electricity on the sabbath is pretty weak as far as prohibitions go and any explanation you hear for why it's banned will always be post-hoc, and the real reason why it's banned is because rabbis are afraid that letting people use electricity will "destroy the spirit of shabbat" (but they can't actually say that's the only reason because it's not strong enough to prohibit it). In fact, on holidays (like passover and the like) the prohibition becomes much, much weaker (to the point where some poskim say that turning on and off LED lights is permitted, among other things.)
But the proper way to address this question is to ask your rabbi of course. If you're an observant Jew, you have one. If he says it's OK then it's OK, if he says it's not then it's not. Sometimes they disagree, and sometimes the disagreement grows big so some strict people for example only eat food that has the Kosher stamp of a specific authority and not the others, and so on.
Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, a very prominent orthodox Jewish halachist held that closing/opening an electrical circuit does not constitute the biblical prohibition of building and destroying.
Instead, he held that that electricity was prohibited "Rabbinically" for an unrelated reason (which is of a lower degree of severity, which has practical implications).
Notwithstanding this, if one say, turns on an incondescent lightbulb I believe that is biblically prohibited according to all because of the heat it generates.
But they're explicitly dedicated for times of need and not for leisure purposes.
Most rabbinic authorities still prohibit Sabbath mode ovens on Shabbat for different reasons, but on holidays with weaker restrictions but that still have electricity bans, like Passover, permit their use.
I remember when my parents first got a "Sabbath mode" oven, the local Orthodox rabbi came over excitedly just to see it at work.