Of course reducing emissions is the only option, any capture method is going to be insufficient by orders of magnitude. But it’s still something, and unless a forest can actively sequester more carbon from the carbon cycle through deep roots and unconsumed ash than can be by using the lumber and the carbon that the lumber replaced, than it is a worse option where the latter is possible.

We’ve changed the climate to the point where many species of trees can no longer healthily survive where the once did. Now there stressed and vulnerable to blight, which means that if we want it keep the forest there we need to at the very least cull the infected trees, which takes time and effort. While stepping back and letting nature and invasive species thrive may be low effort, it also means a massive loss of biodiversity as local species and the natural ecology are threatened out competed and exterminated, as you noted, this leads to a massive reduction in the forests ability to sink carbon compared to a managed multiculture plantation. While evolution may eventually create new well developed ecosystems, evolution is a process that takes tens to hundreds of thousands of years to start, and that’s a long time to wait to try and get out of a little work.

I also find the population argument silly. There is no inherent need for us to produce vast quantities of carbon, no magic corollary between economic plenty and carbon pollution. Though a combination of wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear we can produce far more carbon neutral energy than we need, and amazingly we can even do it at a large economic net gain compared to fossil energy. With enough energy we can do nearly anything, from transport to pulling carbon from the air, though reducing emission is always going to be significantly better of course.

The problem is that there is a large amount of capital tied to the fossil oligarchy, and it has no intention of going down without a fight. A major part of the way they’ve chosen to fight is to make as much of the focus on individual action as they can. It’s why the term carbon footprint was created by an oil company’s add campaign, becuse they know it won’t work and it keeps people from doing things like talking about stricter regulations on emissions and forcing the companies that can make a significant impact to do so.

We have the food, we can make more water and heat than we could ever need, it’s just nowhere near evenly distributed.