Source: fearfully-n-wonderfullymade.com

B. F. Skinner proposed that humans are innately driven by narrow self-interests, such as personal gains, as well as immediate consequences. The underlying premise is that connections are usually made between specific behaviours and outcomes only when they occur close together in space and time. As a result, behaviour is shaped by relatively immediate outcomes i.e. operant conditioning; behaviours with rewarding consequences are encouraged, while behaviours with undesirable consequences are discouraged.

Source: icr.org

However, environmental problems, such as pollution and ozone depletion, occur over very large time-frames and space, perhaps larger than what humans can possibly perceive. As a result, humans do not readily perceive the cause-effect relationship between anti-environmental behaviors and environmental problems.

Take for instance anti-environmental transportation, such as driving a car. One experiences immediate benefits of driving a car, such as comfort, privacy, convenience, perceived status, and so on. However, he/she is also inadvertently blinded by the immediate benefits, to the long-term environmental costs imposed every time driving occurs, such as air pollution. A vicious cycle ensues. As the air becomes more and more polluted, and the weather hotter and hotter, drivers are even more motivated to reside in the comfort of their car interior while traveling, unknowing that this constitutes one of the major forces driving air pollution and global warming. In other words, drivers may not perceive the cause-effect relationship between driving and the hot, hazy weather.