"Why should I care about future generations? What have they ever done for me?"

"Why should I care about future generations? What have they ever done for me?" - The other, ( Groucho), Marx. 

Most people suffer from a sense of moral failure over environmental matters. The mismatch between being told to change our light bulbs when the planet seems in free fall—melting ice caps, polluted water supplies, drought—creates a needling angst and anxiety.  We know that we are in deep trouble, but feel that there is little we—or anyone—can do individually. Anne Karpf writing about climate change in the Guardian last year said “I now recycle everything possible, drive a hybrid car, and turn down the heating. Yet somewhere in my marrow I know that this is just a vain attempt to exculpate myself – it wasn’t me, guv.”

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/24-12

Indeed, when I hear apocalyptic warnings about global warming, after a few moments of fear I tune out. In fact I think I might be something worse than a climate-change sceptic – a climate-change ignorer.

The fuse that trips the whole circuit is a sense of helplessness. Whatever steps I take to counter global warming, however well-intentioned my brief bursts of zeal, they invariably end up feeling like too little, too late. The mismatch between the extremely dangerous state of the earth and my own feeble endeavours seems mockingly large.

Global warming is structured deep into our way of life: you can't just graft fair trade, carbon-free elements on to it. Not while greed is seen as an economic virtue and frugality an economic vice. See the ads that invite us to "Be paid to shop". Or the new prepaid debit card for eight-16-year-olds, presumably on the grounds that it's never too early to learn how to spend, spend, spend. (How about 1,000 free Nectar points for being born? Why not wean babies on pureed Big Macs with fries?)

The culture of acquisition renders invisible everything that can't be counted, calibrated or consumed. The ideology of the market has so penetrated every corner of our lives and thinking that any alternatives have become delegitimised, dismissed as unrealistic or pie in the sky and therefore literally unthinkable. Our imagination has been colonised. In experiments people encouraged to think about financial concerns were less motivated to address environmental problems.

Many of us, though we wouldn't want to admit it, are with Groucho Marx when he said "Why should I care about future generations? What have they ever done for me?" It's going to take a huge cultural change to counter our unbridled narcissism, which demands immediate gratification, and inculcate the idea that we're just trustees of the earth instead. The Hungarians have a parliamentary commissioner for future generation

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/30/climate-change-you-cant-ignore-it