From the perspective of current generations, those living on the planet today, talk of 'future generations' is simply wishful thinking.
At one point in the history of humans on Earth, it was possible to think forward into the future and imagine one's family line extending forward on an indefinite timeline... great grand-children of great grand-children and more great grand-children beyond that. There was no limit to the line of progeny. Not only were there no boundaries to our aspirations for our descendants, everything was expected to get better and better. We could look backwards in history and see how humans have advanced; and, we could look forward into history and see a continuation of anticipated improvements to the human condition.
That was then; now is now! The scope of future human generations is small enough, we can reach out and count them. A 'generation' is all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively... that a would be 'us' who are living today... we are a generation. We will be gone, but our children and grand-children will follow us and will constitute 'another' generation.
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Trump has replaced the White House climate change page with... a pledge to drill lots of oil
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In the United States of America life expectancy is 78.74 years (2012) - in Japan it is 83.10 years- and in the United Kingdom it is 81.50 years. (Just these statistics alone indicates some kind of a problem for those living in the 'richest & most powerful' nation the world has ever seen) Setting that issue aside, and using the information on life expectancy, we can count generations that follow our own generation. A child born today (the next generation) should expect to have a similar (or better) life expectancy.
Trump Plans To Eliminate All NASA Climate Change Research
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This is where it gets painful. This is the place where we start to profusely apologize to our children and grand-children. "It is with our deepest regrets," we can personally say to our off-spring, "that you almost certainly will be the last generation on humans on this planet."
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If it wasn't so sad, it would be comical. Our ingenuity and creative brilliance have brought about our own demise. On the one hand, we created gun powder and on the other hand, we have shot ourselves in the head... intentionally.
As humans developed and advanced their civilizations through the ages, we can claim that we were ignorant and did not know what we were doing. This is partially true. It is partially not true.
We can document that ancient humans knew enough to protect the environment in which we live. Nature was protected and given god-like status.
As our economic systems matured and our ability to wage war grew, nature and natural consequences became unimportant by comparison. Today, making money is the only god of importance and the fully known facts of our own self destruction are ignored.
As a minor example of our stupidity, we can point to food production. We produce enough food for everyone on the planet to be satisfied. But our economic system (distribution) precludes everyone receiving minimal nutrition. Additionally, our wars destroy crop land. And, the food we produce is poisoned by our industrialized farming methods (pesticides & fertilizers).
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Time has already run out... essentially it's game over !!!
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But, as stated, food production, as horrible as it is, is a minor problem compared to the two major threats to human existence... global warming that leads to climate change and nuclear war.
And, when counting future generations in connection to nuclear war, any day could be the last. We have the capacity to wipe ourselves off of the face of the Earth by pushing a few buttons. The fact that we keep dueling with each other (swords to atomic bombs) leads to the conclusion that, eventually... some day, someone will push that button and it will be 'game over'.
We have control over our use of nuclear weapons. We could, if we chose to do so, take the bullets out of the chamber of the pistol and melt down the pistol... into plow shares.
and, in truth, there is no 'Planet B'
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We had a similar opportunity regarding climate change. We have seen it coming for nearly a generation. During that period of time corrective action could have been taken that would, at the very least, minimize the negative effects and allow humans to repair damage. But, that generation was in complete denial... i.e. the apology. There is nothing else left to do but to apologize to our children and grand-children.
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In the face of the evidence, we can hope that some of humanity, in some locations around the planet will survive. But, we know pretty much for certain that things will not be what they were. Those who do survive will not have the 'advantages' of our modern technical society whatever those advantages were.
People look at evidence differently. Some see things through 'rose colored glasses' and some see things through a prism of pessimism. Please do your own research... start to think about how you might address this question with your own children and grand-children. Practice how you plan to apologize for the failure of your generation.
All things considered, depending upon the measurement given a 'generation', looking at the evidence, we can count forward and calculate the number of future generations in front of us. That number is one (1), and that's the truth !!!
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