Defenders of the proposal pointed to Oregon's 12% unemployment rate at the time (which has lowered to a still-record high 10%) largely caused because of contractions in the housing sector and construction industry, part of the lifeblood of the state. Recently, environmentalists have pointed to the catastrophic waterslides caused by heavy rains and the fact that the speed of global warming will harm, not simply generations of the future, but even generations in the here and now, given the rate of the climbing temperatures caused by destruction of forest land. More intensive logging is not the answer, they say. The Obama Administration has been far more sympathetic to environmental concerns than the past Administration. Citing environmental damage, President Obama rescinded the WOPR Act or Western Oregon Plan Revisions, a Bush Administration plan to increase old-growth logging. "Experts agreed that a huge increase in clear-cut logging would muddy important salmon streams, decimate habitat for threatened species, remove popular groves of old-growth forest, and emit massive amounts of global warming pollution" (Heiken, 2010). But the Administration and even anti-logging activists are not insensitive to the need for job growth. Rather than focusing on the past, they suggest that the southwest should instead focus upon the future.

Focusing on the logging industry, whether it is on the romanticized rugged masculinity of Ax Men or upon logging as a solution to a sluggish job market is fundamentally misguided. The housing market is already glutted, while there is a need for high-tech workers. Unsustainable...

"Intel is headquartered in Silicon Valley, but its largest manufacturing plant is in Hillsboro, Oregon, just west of Portland. The company employs 15,000 people in Oregon with an annual payroll approaching $2 billion, making it the largest employer in the state" (Knickerbocker 2011). Increasing the southwest's attractiveness to the high-tech sector, which is expanding, versus a sector of the economy tied to the troubled housing and construction industry would seem to be a better way to 'ax' unemployment in the long run.
Works Cited

Bellos, Nicholas. "When the bough breaks." The Forest Grove News-Times. August 26, 2009.

Updated October 30, 2009. February 18, 2011

http://www.forestgrovenewstimes.com/news/story.php?story_id=125126811271305900

Cornwall, Warren. "Ax Men episode more like the Real World for state timber regulators." the

Seattle Times. March 14, 2009. February 18, 2011

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008857779_axmen14m.html

Knickerbocker, Brad. "Obama touts high tech, business investment at Intel in Oregon." the

Christian Science Monitor. February 18, 2011. February 18, 2011.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0218/Obama-touts-high-tech-business-investment-at-Intel-in-Oregon

Heiken, Doug. "WOPR's ghost still haunts Western Oregon." Medford Mail Tribune.

June 6, 2010. February 18, 2011. http://www.oregonwild.org/about/press-room/press-clips/wopr-s-ghost-still-haunts-western-oregon

Levi, Daniel & Sara Kocher. "The Spotted Owl controversy and the sustainability of rural communities in the Pacific Northwest." Environment and Behavior, 27. 5

(1995): 631-649

"Stars of Ax men accused of illegal log harvest." Associated Press. March 13, 2009. February

18, 2011 http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2009/03/13/stars-tvs-ax-men-accused-illegal-log-harvest#ixzz1ELKoWMDE