I disagree with many commentators who say people are different in different ages. In surface ways yes. Fundamentally, they are the same as you suggest. 1.) People only think about their immediate comfort 2.) Nothing they do will force the next generation to make similar decisions. That is, we could all cut down of burning fossil fuels to 5%, and slow down CO2 but the next generation could ignore that, then burn 5x more than the generation before us. In short, there is no PERSISTENT ideology I can see currently or through history. There is "nothing new under the sun." And everything else in Ecclesiastes ;)