> Politicians don't usually care much about what kind of world they're leaving for their own children, let alone random citizens of the far future.
Politicians probably care about this a lot much than they are given credit for; while plenty are actually short-sighted and narrowly selfish (just like plenty of non-politicians), no doubt a lot of the perception of that comes from people who disagree with them on what is best for the future portraying the politicians disagreement as disinterest. (This frequently happens when the disagreeing parties are not politicians, as well.)