The harrowing images beggared belief. Thousands of baby seals writhing in unimaginable agony on a Namibian beach? The process was disconcertingly simple. The babies are separated from the adults and then methodically clubbed to a bloody pulp. Last week, a television programme reported on how the Namibian government allows a staggering 80,000 seals to be slaughtered every year in such brutal fashion. The government blithely justifies this atrocity by saying that the seals eat too much fish, although scientific research has shown that over-fishing is responsible for the pelagic penury. And yet the seals get the blame and the pain?

Last week, again, cyclone Nargis ravaged Myanmar (Burma), a country already suffering from the oppression of a bewilderingly parochial military junta. Less than four years after the Boxing Day tsunami claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, South East Asia has once again found itself at the wrong end of Mother Nature?s wrath. This time around, the death toll could rise to 100,000. More still, if the junta continues to seize foreign aid. These disturbingly potent storm surges are set to become increasingly commonplace. Is the planet trying to tell us something?

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn argued that two paradigms cannot co-exist. He posited that a paradigm is challenged by ?anomalies?, which contradict its very existence. The revolution occurs when sufficient "anomalies" accumulate to topple the prevailing paradigm and replace it with a new one. Unfortunately, the current paradigm is a crassly utilitarian one. Indeed, almost anything goes if it generates wealth (even if the said wealth is concentrated in the hands of a chosen few). This explains the meteoric rise of multinational corporations who have become a law unto themselves.

Until we learn to replace the utilitarian paradigm, which perceives the planet simply as a resource dispenser, with an environmentally and socially sound one, we haven?t a snowball?s chance in hell of substantially altering. Not only is the current system nefarious for the planet, it is also terribly unfair towards its human inhabitants, billions of whom live in dire poverty. The problem is that the two paradigms are not compatible. It is perhaps encouraging to see governments and companies harp on about the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but it is patently insufficient. The only way we can save ourselves will be to drastically alter our way of life and especially the consumer culture that we have adopted with such wanton glee. What is required for this to happen is a cultural revolution, one that will hammer home how specious the current system really is. However mighty multinational corporations have become, it is we, the consumers, who empower them. It?s the new democracy. Instead of voting with ballots we vote with our wallets.

To illustrate my point, I would like to point out that, according to forecasters, BP and Shell will make record profits of $68 billion this year. How committed do you think these multinationals are to renewable energy when fossil fuels offer such peerless profitability? Then again, how determined are we us to significantly change our lifestyles?

One of Bob Marley?s most influential songs was and remains ?War?. ?Until the philosophy which holds one race/superior and another inferior/is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned/everywhere is war, me say war?, the Jamaican replaces ?race? with ?species? and you might have an inkling of how great the challenge is.