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.

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.

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...