I like the perspective from the common man living in the ruins of society. Indeed, if ITER and other energy generators fail, then we will enter the era of Scramble. As long as nation-state exists as viable political entity, men will not proceed to orderly division of our limited oil supply, but choose the second option of Scramble. The First world nations have had contingency plans for Scramble as early as Pres. George Bush Sr., so the likelihood of your scenario is quite real.
I prefer the orderly division of resources by totalitarian oligarchy over the chaos of Scramble and nuclear wars, but reality will depend on the success of ITER reactors. Insh Allah as the Albas say.
ITER does mean, The Way, and of course, I hope for its success!
Here is the problem I'm having, though: Imagine I'm a 90-year-old Henry Ford and it's 1920 and society has listened to me talk about a thing I call an internal combustion engine; I've been talking about this thing for over 70 years now, and not once have I been able to demonstrate what it is I'm talking about!
So, I'm sure you get it.......They've been talking about this for a long, long time and to my knowledge, they are not even close to demonstrating this tech, so, in a sense, it's a little like speculative metaphysics......But why, then, should anyone take this seriously?
An orderly deconstruction of the consumer/materialist paradigm would be a saner choice and it's here where the world's academies have failed miserably, IMO....The academies have known about C.C. and Peak Oil for 70 years and.......
Maybe you could point me to one university that has established a completely self-sustaining eco-system without fossil fuels....
Which leads me to the chaos and green fascism of the German attempt at dealing with this issue. From following the issue from afar as a layperson it looks like total lunacy from what I can tell, and there is nowhere I can see where society is dealing with the issues of Peak Oil and Climate Change in a sane and orderly fashion.
Maybe only the local greenies who are downsizing to niche eco villages, but that's a tiny amount of people and they are not really being realistic about the horror to come if these intractable problems can't be solved......
In the meantime, the whole of civilization is held up by matchsticks! Better hope a strong wind doesn't blow:)
It is not only the academics, but also the general public, who are indifferent to the grander problems that face all of humanity on this planet. In the US, I recall Pres. Carter's address regarding the need for reduction in consumption and need for conservation. That speech cost him the election, resulting in US interference in Middle Eastern politics to this day.
The problem of global crisis, such as climate change, rampant pollution, ever decreasing usable water supply, etc. is the sad fact of wealthy nations being crippled by political instability of representative government. With the religious institutions, now but a vestige of their previous selves, and an appendage of political structure, only political solution can address our problems. Unfortunately, democracies and republics only have 2-4 year policy horizon and are unsuited to addressing longer-term issues of a nation-state, let alone the globe.