I don't mean it as a slam on CEOs. I mean it exactly as you do: that it is in no decision-maker's rational interest to project plans out to 50 years, and so anyone you can find that's made it to the CEO office simply...won't.
This occasionally means that humans make rather regrettable choices that could totally have been avoided in hindsight, but I don't see a way to fix that without them making other regrettable choices that could only be seen in hindsight. I think it's fairly obvious that there will be a problem with the oil industry in 50 years; however, I have no idea what a possible solution to that problem will be, and I doubt anyone could until a few years have gone by.
It has crossed my mind that the "Great Filter" is simply that between here and "sustainability" is not an impossible path to follow in the mathematical probability-0 sense, but that there are so many local optima that end in global disaster that nobody ever makes it through.
This occasionally means that humans make rather regrettable choices that could totally have been avoided in hindsight, but I don't see a way to fix that without them making other regrettable choices that could only be seen in hindsight. I think it's fairly obvious that there will be a problem with the oil industry in 50 years; however, I have no idea what a possible solution to that problem will be, and I doubt anyone could until a few years have gone by.