We wouldn’t think well of a relative who knew that the bread and milk had to last for the next three days and yet wolfed the lot, nor do we tolerate adults who neglect children.

There is an element of self-interest and a misuse of power in both cases – and we are guilty of both on a global scale. We greedily ignore future generations.

We might also expect to learn from experience and that age would provide wisdom, but frequently it only confirms that we have managed to stay alive.

Too often old men solve problems by defending their privileges, maintaining the status quo and sending young men and women out to die.

It’s ironic that modern industrial societies place an undue emphasis on health and safety, diluting individual responsibility for decision-making and suggesting that we each have rights that will be protected by society, irrespective of our own contribution. However, we carefully limit this thinking to our current situation and give scant thought to the health and safety of the generations to come.

Nowhere is this clearer than with our addiction to fossil fuels. The benefits go to the individual, somewhat unequally, with warm houses, light at our fingertips, car ownership and global flights, as well as highly-mechanised and fertiliser-dependent food production. But the costs of the resulting climate change are shared by everyone, those alive and particularly those not yet born.

Living for the present is the norm in our representative democracies where we expect our governments to deliver continual improvement and growth in living standards. This implies that the planet can continue to produce enough food and energy for a population that increases by a billion each generation, even though living to the American standard would involve at least four planets and we only have one, and that’s damaged.

We take out insurance to cover our everyday activities and our properties, particularly if we live near rivers, and we respond to exhortations to claim from others, or the Council, if we have an accident. But we are slow to accept the responsibility for misfortune and much quicker to apportion blame and to seek compensation. We certainly don’t consider the decades to come.

The ‘polluter pays’ principle is only acceptable until we realise that, in the main, it’s our lifestyles, appetites and habits that are to blame, and then we are not too keen.

Our children will look back on our performance with anger as we selfishly continue to steal from the generations to come and abuse their world, even though we well know the danger.

Generational injustice is alive, thriving, and resisting regulation.