We know that cutting down trees increases heat and intensifies drought but we continue to do it, how bad do things need to get before we reverse course?
Human land use is incredibly inefficient. As a simple example, in the US the vast majority of corn production is ethanol or animal feed (which is incredibly inneficient on a calorie basis). Then when you take into account low density residential and their endless lawns (turf grass has by far the most acres of any crop in the US) and a million other poor uses of land and there's a lot we can do, even at 8 billion people, without destroying every forest.
The issue isn't that the problem isn't solvable, there are tons of things that have huge environmental benefits. The problem is that these generally require some sacrifice (e.g. denser housing with much smaller lawns, eating more resource efficient foods like lentils, moving away from fossil fuels) but there's not sufficient collective will for actually doing these things.
I think such problem are unsolvable. In America, people can't live without meat and they will always justify it by bringing pasture raised cattle farm :/
So firstly there's been a lot of progress. I know people that grew up vegetarian in the 80s and there are so many more animal and environmentally friendly alternatives and people care more now than ever before.
Secondly, these things will change. If you look at the history of activism often there are people advocating against things hundreds of years before we see large changes (there is activism against forced labor in the Americas in the early 1500s even). So I've found it useful to accept the idea that we'll pass down this fight to the next generation and they'll probably pass it down to the one after that. It could be three decades or it could be three centuries but eventually things will change.
Part of the reason USA is clean is because it has exported factories to asia. The US did clean up a lot through regulation too, so it’s not just outsourcing, but global supply chains definitely move some of the environmental cost around. Not pointing any fingers and the asian countries did accept those industries of their own free will because there's money in it but it isn't as simple as you say it is. Earth is a giant room. Other countries don't exist in a different universe. Same thing is happening with data centres now. They're being criticised in the USA because of environmental concerns but india is welcoming them. It's the cost of being poor. You gotta choose between two bad options and pick the one that is less bad.
