It does seem difficult to understand. Assuming this is true, who, precisely, will be actually building stuff? I presume that even in countries with increasingly service-based economies, people still need actual physical stuff built by somebody. Is the assumption that economic growth is going to maintain (or increase) existing manufacturing capacity and, at the same time, increase the percentage of these economies that are service related? I am the furthest thing from an expert on this, but to any out there who are, does that pass the sniff test?

Brian

Yeah, that's what I was referring to. It seems a bizarre statement to make, to me. It implies that the world, as a whole, would be shifting to a more service based economy, which I'm not sure is likely (but they don't explain that, as you say) and I'm not sure would have the effect they claim (but they don't explain that, either).

In any case, a report that uses the completely useless phrase, "at current levels of consumption" (or some variant), is suspect, to my mind. It tries to give the impression that there is no shortage of oil (though a 40 year plateau would not be good, in itself, in terms of growth), when it is a completely meaningless phrase. There should be a world-wide ban on using that phrase on any resource that is finite.