Trees are valuable too. The problem is we don't understand and/or appreciate that value. For instance, trees essentially power the entire terrestrial water cyc

Trees are valuable too. The problem is we don't understand and/or appreciate that value. For instance, trees essentially power the entire terrestrial water cycle. Without trees all the water rains out within a few hundred km of the coast. Trees (far moreso than simple evaporation) are responsible for pushing that water back into the air-stream. Isotopic analysis confirms that 80% of the rainfall on land is caused by transpiration, and most of that is trees. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11983 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11983 This explains why deforestation causes desertification. Cut down the trees and you get a continent-wide desert. These dynamics aren't well-captured by the present economic system, which only sees "valuable real estate" being "taken up" by trees.