End of cheap oil will trump teens' freedom

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Hans Noeldner sent the following letter to the editor in response to a story titled For Teens, Freedom:

Dear Editor:

The Wisconsin State Journal stubbornly refuses to connect the dots.

To see what I mean, read the September 1, 2006 lead story “For Teens, Freedom; For Parents, Worry”, and try to find any of the following words: “addiction”, “oil”, “Iraq”, “sprawl”, “global”, or “warming”. No luck? Isn’t it astonishing that Madison’s largest newspaper fails to discern any noteworthy relationship between these looming crises and that most important milestone in the life of adolescents - their transition from addiction to being driven everywhere by Mom and Dad into addiction to driving themselves?

Nor will you find any recognition that fifty years of sprawling, low-density suburban and exurban development has destroyed the practicality of walking and bicycling for most contemporary youth. We-the-boomers have hijacked a precious freedom - to move between the “A”s and “B”s in one’s community without a two-ton motorized exoskeleton.

How is such mind-numbing denial possible? How absurd to write “For Teens, Freedom…”, when it has become crystal clear that freedom which flows from oil wells is tyranny! If I didn’t suspect that at least one person at the Wisconsin State Journal is beginning to see the light (your Prius-driving curmudgeon Bill Weineke), I would cease reading your paper altogether.

Sincerely,


Hans Noeldner
133 West Lincoln Street
Oregon, WI 53575
hans_noeldner@charter.net
608-444-6190