Back to Basics: How to Create Good Jobs in the Pacific Northwest

The United States is suffering from a "lack of good jobs" economic recovery. Global outsourcing is one of the factors for the loss of good jobs. America is increasingly unable to compete against low wages from China and India.

This book focuses on how the Pacific Northwest can create 20,000+ jobs that will be able to survive and compete in the global marketplace by focusing on the most valuable natural resource of the area - our forests.

Over three quarters of Forest Service lands in Oregon and Washington are at moderate to high risk from destructive wildfires because of large accumulations of brush and small trees. The federal government spent over $1.5 billion in both 2000 and 2002 to suppress wildfires.

Rather than spend increasing sums of money on wildfire suppression, the federal government can sell small trees to pay for the reduction of fuels accumulation. Private companies and public agencies would hire Americans to work in the woods to reduce the fuels buildup and to process the woody biomass in the mills and ethanol conversion plants. We could use ethanol to power our vehicles and would reduce our 60% dependence on imported oil.