[chinupbuttercup]

To substantiate your point, I was thinking about deforestation for farming in Indiana (where I live) and Ohio last week and learned that Indiana was 90% forest until taxes got in the way. It's crazy that something as silly as taxes can cause most of your forests to become farmland.

https://woodlandsteward.squarespace.com/storage/past-issues/...

We are still alive. I wish we had the forests, but we have survived and the environment has adjusted.

[smallerfish]

The US has increased in forest cover over the last 100 years. The loss in your state(s) is somewhat offset by gain in others.

https://www.wri.org/insights/tracking-global-tree-cover-gain

And, the Amazon is pretty damn big. The potential effects of its loss are detailed here:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-the-amazon...

Finally, tropical forests (/jungles) are a lot more productive in terms of growth (and carbon capture) than temperate forests.

https://news.mongabay.com/2011/06/tropical-forests-more-effe...

[verisimi]

Yeah, it's crazy to insentivise deforestation. But people need to eat. And, depending on who you listen to, there is even some evidence that the rainforest may have been a cultivated environment itself, in the dim and distant past.