HSBC: Less than 50 Years of OIl Left

Karen Ward, Senior Global Economist for HSBC, announced an HSBC report claiming that there is less than 50 years of conventional oil left in the world. Fifty years of oil left at the current rates of consumption. The enormous growth of automobile use in China, India and other developing countries, estimated to be over one billion new cars, will put severe strains on those declining supplies.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/less-than-50-years-of-oil-left-hsbc-warns/

What I find baffling is that this story is posted in the "Environment" section of the New York Times when it is clearly an economic story of a report released by the second-largest commercial bank in the world.