A sign of the times?

It hung there,far above my head. A thin brush stroke of white extending unbroken in the still Wellington sky from as far as the eye could see in either direction. It was only the vapor stream of a commercial jet, but it's such a rare sight here in Wellington as thick moving cloud and blustery winds (the normal default setting for a NZ sky) usually disburse them the instant they form. It was a rare sight, and I watched it hang there, seemingly forever.
Friends who are obviously more attentive than I told me that they too had noticed the phenomena regularly over the last 6-8 weeks of clear breathless weather we have been enjoying thanks to Global Warming: and I remembered the unseasonably cold rainy days of our summer Christmas a mere 12 weeks ago. Writing from Macedonia today, missionary friends there told of their first ever snow-less winter which has seen the level of beautiful lake Ohrid drop by more than a meter, cutting drastically that countries hydro power generation capabilities. Another of natures calling card condemning George W's (and Australia's) refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. At one level I must say I am enjoying our extraordinarily late summer, but at the same time I despair at the legacy we are leaving to Sujin and her generation.

To borrow a line from a Dylan song,"when will the ever learn. . . .when will they e-ver learn?"