You're probably right about the short attention span for the good of future generations being self-centred, but in defence I was mainly thinking about my immediate family rather than the rest of the human race.

Of course forward planning is a mark of good governance, something visibly lacking in the UK at the moment.

There's an avenue of oaks lining the driveway of a big house near here, which I reckon (without any evidence ) was planted during the Napoleonic wars as a patriotic act, so that future generations would still be able to build ships.

I wonder if the planter, had he known that iron ships were a mere 50 yrs in the future, would have done it ? Impossible to know.

Keep on planting though....it's harmless, which these days is very important.