I wasn't trying to be sarcastic. I've got about 14 years in the petroleum industry: 12 years on the blue collar side, 2 in the offices.

While the petroleum industry has been a great employer of young people with few job skills, these young people need to be trained and mentored by veterans of the industry.

And these veterans have job skills that are not very transferable. They take a substantial pay cut when they switch careers.

If we can't keep the veterans around, the ability to extract oil responsibly, safely, and efficienctly will be greatly diminished.

The transition is already happening. It will take about 50 years to reduce our fossil fuel to 20% of where it is today.