They're the combustion engine generation. In their life most of the roads and highways were built and all cities became fully motorized.

Most of them in the western industrialized countries could never imagine or want another way of living because this was the promise and evidence of progress and success since they were born.

Unfortunately I wish I shared your optimism that things will change after the boomers pass. I am from and have family in Alberta, oil country, and there's... just no chance. Some of the most vicious deniers (or worse, the "don't carers") are young.

I feel like things are swinging back the other way, and quickly.

When things start to fall apart people can have two reactions to it... stick and work together to solve the problem, or scatter and hoard and everyman-for-himself and proclaim "I got mine, now get lost..."