Normally I wouldn't be so drastic. But burning the insulation off of copper wire is horribly polluting - and unnecessary; stripping isn't difficult (I've done it).

It sounds to me like this dude just doesn't care, and you do. Worse, he doesn't care that you care. And he doesn't care what example he sets for his kid.

You think it's bad now? Consider the following:

You want to buy an econo-car, he insists on a giant SUV. You try to drive in a way that maximizes mileage, he drives like it's the Indy 500.

You set the timer-thermostat for <65 in the winter, >75 in the summer, plus sleep and out-of-the-house intervals to maximize savings. He turns off the timer and sets the temp to 72 in the winter and 68 in the summer.

You recycle, he dumps the recycle bins in with the trash.

You turn off unneeded lights and appliances that he leaves on all the time.

You want to buy a small, energy-efficient house, he wants a McMansion.

You try to get the most out of things; he tosses out perfectly-good working things because he wants the newest model.

The utility and gasoline costs are sky-high because of his wasteful ways, limiting what you can do in other areas, like donating to green causes or making energy-efficiency improvements, but he won't consider changing anything.

It's one thing to have disagreements, like whether to buy the 25 or 35 mpg car, but this sounds like a basic value problem that he doesn't want to "compromise" on.

Some people just don't get it.

"Although my conservative Father continues to insist that no public transit system has ever paid for itself through fares.."

He's just wrong about that. Before about 1970, almost all US transit properties started out as for-profit private enterprises. They only began to fail after WW2, when the postwar auto culture, the interstate highway system, and things like the National City Lines efforts began to kill them.

(Look up "National City Lines". The "Red Car" subplot of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" is based on fact).

100 years ago, you could travel from New York City to Chicago by taking trolleys and interurbans for more than 90% of the distance. Today only the extreme ends of all those lines remain.

We could have effective transit all over the USA again - if we want it. As another mentioned, just look at Portland Oregon.

"There are oil shales in Canada exceeding the known crude oil supplies elsewhere on the planet."

What will it cost, in dollars and resources, to extract usable fuel from those shales?

"So, it will take 300 years before we run out, if nothing new is discovered."

Maybe - if consumption doesn't increase.

"Ask the oil companies why they no longer build new refineries, hence the 'shortage' of oil production and rising prices."

Refineries are constantly being rebuilt and upgraded - to reduce cost.

"Ask our US military to quit producing more weaponry than ALL the other nations of the world COMBINED, and hence using up so much energy, in pursuit of their ultimately fascistic plan to enslave the whole planet."

This part you got right.

But it's not just the energy needed to build the weapons. It's also the energy to maintain them, train people to use them, transport them, etc.

And the industry resources devoted to "defense" are not available for other projects.

I remember the 1960s, when American industry developed and built space vehicles that took humans to the moon and brought them back. But the USA could not seem to produce a good economy car, or even one that could compete with the VW Beetle.

"If Republicans want to conserve energy...There is more than one way to skin any cat and if the right wants to conserve, they will conserve. THEIR UNIQUE WAY."

Ah....no.

First off, I don't think "conservatives" want to conserve. Conservation has the wrong ideological feel to it; it means there are limits to growth and production. And it means that, no matter how you slice it or how the conserving is done, the "treehuggers" are right about the need to conserve.

And when you see all the ways that have been proposed, it's kinda hard to find a "unique way" that will actually work.