I partially agree - we need to change our economic system, and the metric "number of trees" planted isn't great when it comes to fighting climate change.
But the question remains: How do we motivate people to join the fights you described?
In my experience, changes in personal consumption can lead to different kinds of activism, and hands-on work like tree-planting can do the same.
Reading terrible news might do the same for some, but for most it's just disempowering.