One might wonder why Native stories wished for more rain in damp, dark Seattle, but spring floods signal salmon to return to spawning rivers where people caught them.

Seattle, which has declared its desire to cut carbon emissions in the region, has instead fallen behind, coming up well shy of its reduction goals. One of the big culprits? Phenomenal growth in air traffic in and out of Sea-Tac, where passenger traffic increased from 34.8 million in 2013 to 49.8 million in 2018, an annual growth of about 8 percent.

Can Washington manage its vast forests in part to, say, slow climate change or protect drinking water, or must it manage them exclusively to generate money for public school construction and the budgets of cash-strapped counties? This question is not merely rhetorical.

Lumbermen in a few decades scythed away our forest cover that was a wonder of the world. Centuries must pass before any of that grandeur returns.

If wolves lose all federal protection, as is now threatened, they still have the state. But Washington state policy looks uncertain.