I go into more depth in my other comment, but the short version is that building everything nice that you listed takes energy, and Net Zero just doesn't have a viable story for how to provide that energy economically and reliably at the scale that we need.
> we wish we'd spent the last 20 years not razing forests, polluting air and water, and so on
You're painting a false equivalence. Continuing to use fossil fuels doesn't mean chopping down the Amazon and belching foul smoke everywhere. Similarly, building wind and solar doesn't automatically mean you are a good steward of the environment; one could just as easily raze a forest to mine coal as to build a solar farm.
In the end, I want those nice things, too! I'm not advocating for pollution and destruction for the fun of it. I just sincerely doubt that Net Zero will get us those nice things.
If you want specific goals that don't include reducing carbon you should chase those goals instead of chasing reducing carbon dioxide as a priority. If carbon emissions aren't a big deal then maybe a better way to improve children's health might be to eradicate hookworm or subsidize school meals more or pay for childrens health insurance or go after local pollutants. Now maybe it makes sense to do multiple but you have to look at cost benefit analysis for the tradeoffs.
Its also a stupid argument because we know and are sure that climate change isn't a hoax. And that costs of climate change are massive and that any cost benefit analysis for doing more to stop it would indicate we should do more.
Maybe net zero is a waste of time because in 20 years we will crack cold fusion and have infinite energy and then literally suck pollutants out of the air. Or maybe we don't and we wish we'd spent the last 20 years not razing forests, polluting air and water, and so on