Green criminology has explored many issues, but has not adequately investigated accelerated species extinction (for exception see, Brisman & South, 2020), although there is some green criminological literature on species loss (Long et al., 2024; Lynch et al., 2015, 2017). This article takes up that issue and proposes a political economic green criminological perspective on species extinction. In that view, capitalism’s constant expansionary goals drive increased economic production and consumption, accelerating the pace of the treadmill of production (ToP), which increases ecological resource consumption, adds environmental pollution, and reduces the volume of natural ecological space, all of which contributes to accelerated species extinction rates. The accelerated wave of species extinction is called the 6th wave of extinction or the Anthropocene Extinction due to its human causes (Steffen et al., 2007, 2011; Zalasiewicz et al., 2010). While some criminologists posit a connection between ToP expansion and species extinction (Lynch et al., 2015, 2019), hard scientists have not specifically linked the 6th wave of extinction to the capitalist ToP. This article builds the case for explaining the 6th wave of extinction as a human product that originates primarily with the capitalist ToP.

In making this case, we review characteristics of capitalism that promote ecological disorganization that facilitate species extinction. These factors include capitalism’s constant expansionary tendencies, acceleration of the ToP; increased natural resource consumption; and expanded ecological additions (pollution). That review addresses the contradictions between capitalism and nature, and capitalism’s need to consume nature to make capital accumulation possible. The link between capitalism and species extinction is addressed using scientific literature on species extinction.

Species extinction provides one example of how the capitalism-nature contradiction produces adverse ecological consequences (i.e., ecological disorganization) defined as green crimes from the perspective of nature by green criminology (Lynch et al., 2013). The current extinction rate is not a natural process but, rather, is generated by ecological stressors produced by humans through production/consumption/pollution that damage ecosystem boundaries, behavior and health (Richardson et al., 2023). In this view, human stressors produced by capitalism since the industrial revolution accelerated with expansion of the ToP following WW II, and have changed the nature of nature, leading to increasing rates of species extinction.

Criminologists take up numerous issues in the analysis of crime and justice, spending significant effort addressing the causes of crime and injustice. As criminologists, we imagine that such work is important, and extensive effort is expended to discover the causes of delinquency, defining “best practices” for treating offenders, testing etiological theories, contributing to the enhancement of social control, etc. A central premise of green criminology is that there are significantly larger issues than street crime that criminologists should address. These issues include environmental harms and injustices that affect the very nature of the world in which we live that destroy the ability of nature to support life in human and nonhuman forms. Taking up this position requires adopting a nonlegal definition of crime (Lynch et al., 2016). Relevant green criminological research demonstrates that the harms from green crimes are much larger than those posed by street crimes, and include nonhuman victimization affecting ecosystems, ecosystem components (e.g., water, land, river, stream pollution) and nonhuman animals (Lynch, 2013). Over the past quarter century, a significant volume of scientific literature demonstrates that the behaviors that comprise green crimes/injustices against ecosystems have increasingly impacted the ability of species to survive, causing escalating extinction rates.

Green criminology posits that in the rapidly changing, increasingly unstable ecosystem in which we live, topics normally addressed by criminologists are quickly becoming irrelevant as ecosystems collapse under the pressure of human activities (Lovelock, 2016/1979). In recent decades, ecological changes have become rapid, involve the build-up of large quantities of environmental toxins, and the destruction of ecosystems to facilitate production. While humans have not seen fit to use legal systems to outlaw and control most green crimes, the laws of nature—that is the physical laws of ecosystem relations—have sent the message that these harmful human acts can no longer be tolerated. That message is expressed to humans through the ways in which the ecosystem is changing in response to human induced harm (Lovelock, 2016/1979).

Over time, human pollution and ecological destruction has pushed species closer to extinction, and numerous species have gone extinct over the past century. The primary driver of the contemporary extinction process is human activity. According to nature’s laws discovered in physics, chemistry, biology, toxicology and laws of science developed in specialty areas such as endocrinology, genetics and similar sciences, these human-produced harms are so severely impacting the composition of the ecosystem that the reproductive abilities of the nature are challenged (Lovelock, 2016/1979), generating biodiversity loss and species extinction (Mace et al., 2014).

Green criminologists suggest that these ecosystem harms are violations of nature’s laws, and hence crimes against nature (Lynch et al., 2013). Green definitions of crime/injustice such as the one above stand outside of the criminal law standards criminologists prefer historically. Adhering to strict criminal law standards limits the ability of criminologists to address the wide range of crimes humans commit against nature. Consistent with this green criminological definition of crime/injustice as a form of ecological disorganization is a large scientific literature positing predictions about the end of the world as we know it. At this point in history, in the rapidly declining eco-scape of ecological destruction, the traditional criminologist who remains wedded to the study of street crime have become like Nero who fiddled while Rome burned. Moreover, while traditional crime has declined globally over the past three decades, the volume of environmental crime has expanded. Confined by the straight-jacket of the criminological discipline, criminologists find it difficult to step beyond the discipline’s historical margins and traditions, and have paid limited attention to green crime/injustice. Our discipline makes it difficult for us to address problems outside the world criminology has constructed. Green criminology expands the criminological imagination in ways that promote attention to environmental harms, crimes and injustice. The big problems in the modern world are ecological. There is nothing that we do that is not constrained by the ecological system, its physical composition and rules of order and existence. We cannot exist outside the ecological system; the ecological system sets the limits of our existence in a definitive and materialistic way, and we should acknowledge that reality by studying the intersection of the environment, green harms/crime/injustice and criminology.

Contemporary scientific research indicates that the ecosystem is shrinking on many levels, constraining our human world and existence. There are fewer resources available to humans as we use them up, and as those resources shrink, so does the scope of human existence. Humans, especially under the influence of capitalism, have used up those resources so quickly that nature can no longer reproduce natural resources on the scale humans now use (Burkett, 2006). We see this in the ecological footprint, which tells us that currently, humans use 1.5 years of nature’s resources each year, meaning that humans are consuming stored natural resources and attenuating nature’s ability to reproduce conditions for life on earth (Eufrasio Espinosa & Lenny Koh, 2024).

Humans, in short, are shrinking the world through excessive production and consumption. Nature is letting us know that we have shrunk it too far and by too much by changing Earth’s equilibrium (Lovelock, 2007, 2016/1979). That equilibrium change—as it is pushed further by alterations to the climate system, and the nine planetary boundaries—is so drastically changing the world that those changes threaten the future of human existence. That is, while humans threatened nature’s existence and promotes conditions that accelerate species extinction, nature’s reaction to this condition is to make the world less hospitable to humans (Lovelock, 2016/1979). In this sense, the excessive production and consumption habits of humans are not only making our contemporary world and our existence smaller, they are producing the condition for human extinction.

The increased rate of species extinction is one of the signs of change in the global world ecosystem. The 6th extinction is not a natural extinction phase induced by some organic base-change in nature or some catastrophic event as in previous extinction periods (Barnosky et al., 2011; Hatfield et al., 2025; Jablonski, 1994; Stork, 2010). Because the 6th extinction is being forced by humans, it is also called the Anthropocene extinction (and for some, the Holocene extinction). To be sure, this reaction of nature to human over-production and over-consumption is “natural” to the extent that it follows the rules of nature and the physical rules of the Earth’s ecosystem (Lovelock, 2007, 2016/1979). The cause of that change, however, are not natural since they are linked to over-production and over-consumption set in motion by humans, and as some argue is linked to the uncontrolled growth of capitalism and the treadmill of production (Altmire & York, 2026). Without belaboring the point, Lomolino et al. (2001, p. 223) note, “Few ... serious scientists question that we are witnessing an acceleration of extinction rates. The ongoing loss of biodiversity far exceeds what paleontologists consider background levels and may well, if projections are accurate, rival some of the mass extinctions on record. … In this case … the extinction results from the action of one species, our own” (see also, Head et al., 2022; Kuwae et al., 2024; Steffen et al., 2015).

Today, numerous scientists agree that species are going extinct at alarming rates. By “alarming” scientists mean different things. One thing they mean is that extinction is occurring at a rate never before seen in the history of the world. There have been five mass extinctions in world history over the past 540 million years. The 6th extinction is different since it is the only extinction that coincides with human existence and, scientists argue, is driven by human behavior (Lomolino et al., 2001; Steffen et al., 2007). Extinction periods can be differentiated from non-extinction periods by the degree of extinction using a comparison to the extinction background rate—that is, the rate at which species go extinction without an external event. Compared to the background rate, the extinction rate in the 6th extinction is, depending on the specific study and the species examines, 100 to 1,000 times greater (Mora et al., 2011). In a 2002 article, Levin and Levin noted that in the modern world, a species goes extinct every 20 minutes.

Prior mass extinctions were caused by natural phenomena such as rising and falling sea levels (the Ordovician–Silurian extinction, 439 million years ago; Sheehan, 2001), global cooling (the late Devonian extinction, 364 million years ago; McGhee, 1996), comets and volcanic activity (the Permian-Triassic extinction, 251 million years ago; McElwain & Punyasena, 2007), lava flow (the late Triassic–Jurassic extinction, 214–199 million years ago; Kiessling et al., 2007), and asteroids (the Cretaceous–Paleogene or Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction, 65 million years ago; Macleod et al., 1997). In contrast, the 6th extinction is being forced by human behavior through mass habitat destruction, anthropogenic climate change, displacement of species through unnatural species invasion processes, over-harvesting of natural resources, and human over-population. Of special interest in understanding the 6th extinction are the ways anthropogenic climate change contributes to species extinction (Blaustein et al., 2010).

Some argue that the 6th extinction began with the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, when humans began to transform the world by shifting from hunting and gathering to stationary existence grounded in agricultural production rather than foraging, thereby affecting the global landscape (Holdaway & Jacomb, 2000). To be sure, the transformation of ecosystems into agricultural lands had significant impacts on local species and extinction rates. Yet, it is only in the past 170 years since the end of the Industrial Revolution (1760–1840) that extinction rates accelerated rapidly. Moreover, it is only in the past 70 years, since WWII, that extinction rates have reached epidemic proportions. Recent research suggests that the 6th extinction began in 1953 (Kuwae et al., 2024), a date that links this period to the emergence of the treadmill of production era following World War II.

Research links the 6th extinctions to economic development. While physical/hard scientists suggest that the 6th extinction has economic development associations, they have not specifically linked it to capitalism, the treadmill of production, the capitalist world system, and the forms of over-consumption, over production, and the acceleration in ecological withdrawals and ecological additions generated by the capitalist treadmill of production. That link has been made in sociological research (Altmire & York, 2026; McKinney et al., 2010; Shandra et al., 2009). This argument is examined below to illustrate these connections more clearly.

To appreciate the connection between capitalism and the 6th extinction, this section reviews: some characteristics of capitalism; its expansion into a world-wide system of production and consumption; its reliance on ecological exploitation and destruction; and how the treadmill of production, which facilities growth of ecological consumption and pollution, also contributes species extinction.

To begin, capitalism is based on constant expansion of the means of production and consumption. Production and consumption are expanded to facilitate the primary goal of capitalism, the accumulation of profit. For the present discussion, Marx’s (1976/1867) analysis of capitalism provides both the theoretical and empirical framework against which these claims can be interpreted and assessed.

As Marx illustrated, the production of value in a capitalist economy can be interpreted with respect to the investment and production of value appearing in the commodity (C). From the perspective of capital, a commodity’s value is defined as, C = c + v + s; where c is the constant capital expenditures on rent, machinery, energy, and so forth; v is the wage labor bill; and s is the surplus value produced by labor in the production process. The capitalist’s interest is manipulating production to increase the generation of surplus value (s), the rate of surplus value (e = [s/v] * 100]) and the rate of profit (r = [s/c + v + s] * 100). This can generally be accomplished by altering the conditions of production through manipulation of the value constituents of the organic composition of capital (g = [c / v ] * 100).

The above describes the general rule of value and its production under capitalism, but omits an important consideration described by ecological Marxists concerning the various contradictions between capitalism and nature (Burkett, 2006; Burkett & Foster, 2006; Foster, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2022; Foster & Clark 2020; Foster et al., 2010/2000; Jorgenson, 2003, 2006, 2008; Jorgenson & Clark, 2011; Magdoff & Foster, 2010). To summarize those views, ecological Marxists argue that in order to expand production, consumption and profit, the capitalist system must constantly increase its consumption of natural resources. That is, for output to increase, raw material inputs which serve to congeal economic values must also expand continually if capitalism is to achieve its goals of constantly expanding profit. This observation also has relevance to the extent that the labor provided by nature that produces natural resources is omitted from the value calculation under capitalism.

Ecological Marxists also refer to the idea that capitalism’s expansionary tendencies are opposed to (in contradiction with) nature’s conservationist tendencies. Nature’s conservationist tendencies allow the ecosystem to reproduce conditions for the life of species, and when that reproductive system (also referred to as nature’s economic system) is disturbed, ecological conditions deteriorate and cause ecological reproduction to fall into a state of decline.

In short, following the above, we can set a condition on capitalist production which states that c + v + s, and their related outcomes (increasing profit, surplus value) are only possible when raw material inputs into the system also increase. This is generally an unmeasured condition, and the value of natural capital to the ecosystem and its economy are not understood or considered within the system of capitalism and its internal valuations (Burkett, 2006). That is to say, in capitalism, the value of raw materials is only defined relative to their cost of extraction, leaving out the value nature produces through its labor. The capitalist system of valuation is only concerned with the value added to raw materials in production by human labor, and not with the natural value of the raw materials in nature’s economy and reproductive system, which is treated as if it were free (Burkett, 2006). It is in this sense that ecological Marxists identify the exploitation of nature—or the theft of natural value—as a requirement for capitalist production (Foster, 1999, 2000; Foster & Clark, 2020). The contradiction here is that the value of the raw materials in nature’s economy and reproductive system is ignored under capitalism, and are treated as if they did not exist.

Above, we have described the general rule of capital accumulation. Capital accumulates at different rates across industries, locations and historical eras depending on variations in any number of factors impacting production (e.g., changes in the minimum wage level; changes in the cost of reproducing labor; saturation of the organic composition of capital, etc.). Historically, an important change emerged following WWII, as the capitalist treadmill of production (ToP) altered the nature of production through increased energy consumption specifically related to accelerated use of fossil fuels and chemical energy inputs (Schnaiberg, 1980). The increase in chemical/fossil fuel energy inputs facilitates the expansion of resource withdrawals, or what are termed ecological withdrawals in ToP analysis, as the ToP’s pace accelerated. The important point is that these accelerate ecological withdrawals have numerous adverse ecological effects that in turn impact processes such as extinction.

First, the escalated use of fossil fuel/chemical energy sped up the ToP. This results in expanded chemical/fossil fuel inputs and withdrawals, additional acceleration of the ToP, and an increase in ToP raw material consumption, as if the entire process was on an unstoppable treadmill.

Second, increased fossil fuels/chemical use increased the consumption of both (Clark & York, 2005, 2008; Krausmann & Haberl, 2002; Schandl & Schulz, 2002). This led to the invention of new and more ecologically damaging ecological withdrawal processes (e.g., mountaintop mining removal, hydrofracturing, horizontal drilling, enhance oil recovery) to speed up and intensify ecological withdrawals. Not only were natural resources being depleted at an elevated rate, ecosystems were also destroyed more rapidly to extract those resources. This has had detrimental effects for species across the e and especially in local ecosystems where ecological withdrawal processes effects are the most intense.

Third, as the ToP consumes more fossil fuel/chemical energy, it accelerates entropy, climate change and ecological disorganization. As Burkett and Foster (2006; see also Foster, 1999) note, the constant expansionary tendencies of capitalism require increased fuel consumption, and transfers stored energy into work and heat, producing entropy which is defined as a disorganized state of matter. Often overlooked here is the fact that capitalism’s quest for profit disrupts nature’s reproductive process by consuming the energy nature has stored in inert forms. That stored energy can be seen as a deposit of energy nature transforms to maintain the ecosystem’s energy balance—a withdrawal of energy that keeps temperatures in a reasonable, reproductive range. But capitalism cannot resist using those fossil fuels precisely because they represent highly concentrated stores of energy.

Fourth, acceleration of the ToP increases the volume of pollution (ecological additions) added to the environment. Various forms of ecological additions released into the environment can have serious consequences for species exposed to those pollutants. In scientific literature, localized wildlife extinctions have been linked to exposure to pollutants (Brown et al., 2009). Numerous studies demonstrate that pollutants produced by the ToP travel great distances to impact wildlife (de Wit et al., 2010; Letcher et al., 2010; McKinney et al., 2009), and various forms of pollution have been found to impact wildlife biodiversity and health (Lemly & Skorupa, 2012; Lovett et al., 2009; Oehlmann et al., 2009; Sovacool, 2012).

The preceding sections outlined a green criminological perspective linking the excesses of capitalism’s over-production and consumption tendencies to the accumulation of ecological destruction and the extinction of species. In this section, we turn our attention to some of the evidence on the 6th extinction. To what extent are species becoming extinct? And how do these rates of extinction compare to background species extinction rates?

Like other scientific efforts to predict outcomes, species extinction rate estimates are a function of the information input into models predicting extinctions and the structure of those models. In recent years, sophisticated methods for assessing the impact of human induced ecological damage on species developmental, genetic, demographic behavior and extinction tendencies have been produced (Chevin et al., 2010; Cowie et al., 2022; Hatfield et al., 2025; Head et al., 2022; Kuwae et al., 2024). These methods have improved species extinction predictions. While predicting species extinction is difficult, it requires complex modelling that addresses geographic variations in those patterns, and must speak to limitations in some of the data used for those prediction (e.g., limitations in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Redlist, see Cowie et al., 2022), evidence continues to suggest that the primary determinants of 6th wave species extinction are from human environmental impacts (Ekinci, 2024; Lee & Jetz, 2011). The following summarizes some of what is known about species extinction in the modern era or what Huey, Losos and Mortiz (2010) describe as “the race toward extinction,” and which Dirzo, Ceballos and Ehrlich (2022) describe as the “circulating the drain” crisis for humanity.

A general conclusion of many studies is that species extinction rates will accelerate along with climate change (Beever et al., 2011; Thomas et al., 2004; Williams et al., 2003), and land use changes such as habitat loss and fragmentation from deforestation and urbanization (Hernon, 2022). These studies include analyses of the effects of climate change on plants (Fordham et al., 2012), coral (Carpenter et al., 2008), coral reef fish (Graham et al., 2011), marine ecosystems generally (Hoegh-Guldberg & Bruno, 2010), polar bears (Hunter et al., 2010), and amphibian populations, among many others. Among the species most affected by the climate change-extinction intersection are amphibians because of their connection to tropical climates, relative immobility and their small geographic ranges (Collins et al., 2009; Wake & Vredenburg, 2008). For other species, significant evidence exists for the impacts of habitat loss and fragmentation on species biodiversity decline and extinction (Colares et al., 2022).

Studies of specific species demonstrate the extent of extinction in the modern era. Numerous studies, for example, examine bird extinction rates since bird populations are well observed with regard to geographic dispersion, concentrations and counts. Many estimates of bird extinctions indicate that the rate of extinction is 26 times higher than background levels, while some studies suggest an extinction rate closer to 100 times the background rate (Pimm et al., 2006). Pimm et al. (2006) estimate that if serious conservation efforts are not undertaken, the bird extinction rate will reach 1,500 times the background rate by the end of the 21st century. Pimm et al. also suggest that researchers should not generalize from bird extinction rates to other species, since other, less mobile species are more likely to be impacted by human activities, and because humans have been more likely to protect birds compared to other species.

Sinervo et al. (2010) examined extinction rates among 200 species of lizards in Mexico since 1975. The authors found a 12% extinction rate, and predicted by that the year 2080, species extinction rates for lizards would reach 39%. Other studies indicate massive losses in turtle populations, supporting the 6th extinction hypothesis (McCallum, 2021). Data from amphibian populations indicates that one-third of approximately 6,300 species face conditions that would lead to extinction (Wake & Vredenburg, 2008), and that the extinction rate for amphibians is 211 times the background rate (McCallum, 2007). Data also indicates that the extinction rate for amphibians is likely to increase, and is most likely to affect species with limited ranges confined to certain ecosystem types (e.g., tropical rainforest; Wake & Vrendenburg, 2008).

In 1999, Ricciardi and Rasmussen projected that the species extinction rate for freshwater animal species would be 4% per decade. They noted that the freshwater species extinction rate exceeded the extinction rates for tropical rain forest species. This was an important discovery since it was commonly assumed that extinction rates among tropical rain forest species were among the highest in the world, especially when plant biodiversity loss is considered (Christenhusz & Govaerts, 2025).

More general studies of extinction indicate an alarming species extinction rate. In an article written by 174 scientists (Hoffmann et al., 2010), the authors analyze extinction data for 25,780 species. One fifth of the species were classified as “threatened,” and the analysis suggests that at current rates, 52 species move one category closer to extinction each year. The study also indicated that species extinction has been decelerated by conservation efforts, and that current extinction rates would be 20% higher without these efforts. Despite the importance of conservation for species extinction, conservation alone cannot offset all human-forced ecological impacts, especially from agricultural expansion and logging.

Of special interest are studies of extinction rates for mammals. Large mammals are particular vulnerable to extinction (Ceballos et al., 2020), including freshwater (Torres-Romero et al., 2024) and marine mammals (Albouy et al., 2020). Cardillo et al. (2005) suggest that mammal extinction rates are impacted by three factors: size, low reproductive rates and environmental factors. The threat posed by environmental factors increases rapidly with mammal size (above 6.6 pounds), and the interaction between the environment and factors intrinsic to mammals such as low reproduction rates will tend to accelerate extinction among mammals more rapidly than in other species, escalating the loss of mammal biodiversity at higher rates than previously predicted (Cardillo et al., 2005).

Humans place stress on the environment. Our argument suggests that the level of stress humans place on the ecological system has accelerated with the pace of capitalism’s expansion and capital accumulation (Steffen et al., 2007). In the ToP era, that stress has been magnified through accelerated use of fossil fuels/chemical energy. ToP acceleration promotes over-consumption and over-production, producing expanded deleterious ecological impacts associated with ecological withdrawals and ecological additions. As noted, ecological withdrawals facilitate ecological destruction, aid in the production of entropy, and disorganize nature in ways that diminish nature’s ability to reproduce a sustainable ecological system. Similarly, ecological additions impede nature’s reproductive functions and establish ecological conditions that alter the survival of species (for criminological applications, see Stretesky et al., 2013)—all of which are defined as environmental/green crimes of ecological disorganization in the green criminological literature (Lynch et al. 2013).

One of the most pressing issues in the modern period of extinction is climate change. Climate change and increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations fueled by the capitalist ToP have increased from around 250 parts per million (ppm) in the pre-industrial era to approximately 428 ppm today. Most of that increase occurred since WWII (ppm in 1948 was 310; Steffen et al., 2007), or since the expansion and transformation of the capitalist ToP and increased reliance on fossil fuel/chemical energy. As noted, climate change plays a significant role in the 6th wave of extinction. During this period, extinction rates driven by human activities are intimately connected to capitalism’s expansion (Foster, 2022; Soriano, 2018).

Many issues green criminologists examine can be reinterpreted to fit this political economic interpretation of the capitalism-species extinction connection. This includes studies related to illegal wildlife trafficking (Sollund, 2019), poaching (Eliason, 2012), and illegal logging (Bisschop, 2012; Green et al., 2007), among others (Beirne & South, 2013/2007). Studies of this type generally deal with the result of directly visible human ecological destruction (e.g., illegal logging, air or water pollution, etc.,), but have overlooked less visible outcomes (e.g., extinction, biodiversity loss), while also failing to develop an explanatory framework in which these adverse outcomes and capitalism are connected.

A relevant example concerns the links between capitalism, animal trafficking and the transformation of natural species into marketable commodities. Animal/plant species are produced by the labor of nature, which the human economy essentially steals without providing compensation to nature for its labor, a situation/process described as “the robbery of nature” by environmental sociologists (Foster & Clark, 2020). Once robbed from nature and transformed into a commodity, a market for the species is established, and if the species is “desirable,” this can facilitate the over-production (i.e., in this case the excessive robbery/kidnapping/trafficking) of the species as a commodity, which can generate a threat to the existence of the species. This animal-commodification process is also driven by the over-abundance of economic resources or wealth and its unequal distribution. Wealth inequality allows the consumption patterns of relatively wealthier people to influence the behavior of the poor in less developed nations, who can make a living by serving as the labor force that robs species from nature. This argument is not meant to suggest that in the pre-capitalist period, ecological destruction linked with wildlife consumption was unknown. Our argument, however, is that absent capitalism, the extent of ecological exploitation would not have reached its current levels, and the acceleration of species extinctions would be significantly lower—an argument supported in the environmental sociology literature (Stuart & Gunderson, 2020).

Central to a critical evaluation and understanding of the contemporary wildlife trade-capitalism-extinction/biodiversity connection is the theory of ecologically unequal exchange (EUE; Shandra et al., 2009). A basic premise of EUE is that the modern capitalist world system is characterized by a flow of unequal exchanges between developed/core and less developed/peripheral nations (Bunker, 1985, 2005). This exchange flow increases resource depletion (ecological withdrawals) in peripheral nations compared to core nations, meaning that the elevated levels of ecological consumption in developed nations is only possible through unequal ecological exchanges with less developed nations that provide raw materials. Moreover, these EUEs allow less developed nations to be used as pollution sinks (Warlenius, 2016). EUE is not only visible in legitimate raw material markets (Rammelt & Ylla-Català, 2025), but, we suggest, is also evident in the animal trade/trafficking market, and in the economic aspects of biodiversity loss research (Besek & York, 2019; McKinney et al., 2010).

Illegal logging provides another example. Illegal logging and the withdrawal of forest products are generated by the same capitalist market structures and incentives that facilitate the over-production/consumption market for rare/threatened animal species. Rare timber species are not being consumed by the general population in many cases (though some illegal logging certainly is destined for use in common products), but are being consumed by those who have accumulated excessive wealth generated by the capitalist ToP and its transformation of nature into consumable commodities that generate profit. On a broader scale, this world capitalist system of unequal exchanges that drives the timber trade is also associated with deforestation (Shandra et al., 2009).

An orthodox economist defending capitalism would object to the above arguments, suggesting that the price theorem associated with the supply-demand function would cause escalating prices as species became rare, thus limiting and eventually halting the process of species extinction. There is a great deal of evidence around us that this theorem fails in the real world. The need for legal intervention to limit free-markets to prevent animal extinctions is well-known, with a prominent example being the introduction of the 1916 Migratory Bird Act in the US to prevent mass slaughter of birds used in the fashion industry (Burns et al., 2008). Traditional supply-demand approaches suggest that threatened species become protected by free-market mechanism as the supply of a species declines. To work, this orthodox argument requires knowledge of the supply of a species that adjusts its market price as the species declines, and if this were to occur, then the free-market might protect species from excessive extraction. The history of species extinction in relation to their role as commodities, however, does not provide empirical support for orthodox economic contentions; numerous species have been driven into extinction or to near extinction due to continued market demand despite rising supply costs and shrinking supply levels (Burns et al., 2008). Moreover, the capitalist supply-demand assumption does not apply to other forms of ecological withdrawals or ecological additions, and does not tend to raise the price of commodities that damage the ecological system’s reproductive abilities. Capitalism is not designed to respond to the destruction of nature (Foster, 2002), and as ecological Marxists suggest, capitalism must destroy nature to produce commodities and profit, which represents the core contradiction between capitalism and nature.

One consequence of ecosystem destruction is the increase in species extinction as the ecosystem is consumed to produce products for the capitalist marketplace. Here, some might also argue that environmental laws and policies significantly reduce the adverse ecological impacts of capitalism. Research on these issues related to economy-environment decoupling (Thombs & Jorgenson, 2026), recession-pollution trends (Long et al., 2018), and the dissipative effects of aging capitalist economies in contrast to the increased ecologically destructive tendencies of expanding capitalist economies (Lynch & Long, 2024) indicate that capitalism and ecological disorganization are strongly connected, and that environmental policies alone tend to be ineffective for controlling the ecologically disorganizing impacts of capitalism (Stretesky et al., 2018).

Political economic analysis exposes how the contradictions between capitalism and nature produces species extinction as one cost of contemporary capitalism. But, it is not just species that are becoming extinct—their extinction is being driven by the accelerated consumption of nature and the destruction of nature’s reproductive capabilities. Species extinction, in other words, is an outcome of the more general destruction of nature as it is transformed in various ways into commodities for the capitalist marketplace (Foster, 1999, 2002; Foster & Clark, 2020; Foster et al., 2010/2000).

One issue our discussion leads to is contemplation that the 6th wave of extinction could extend to humans. One of the first to warn that the 6th extinction could lead to human extinction was well-recognized paleoanthropologist, Richard E. Leakey (1996). Later, Yule, Fournier and Hindmarsh (2013) noted that current patterns of human population expansion and per capita resource use will certainly impact the extent of species biodiversity, and future humans will inhabit an Earth with fewer animals. Human effects on the ecosystem will likely include diminishing nature’s reproductive abilities, and the generation of conditions conducive to the spread of infectious diseases for a wide spectrum of species. What may happen to humans depends on whether humans learn to use fewer resources, and the extent to which human “disasters” (e.g., mass infectious illnesses induced by climate change reduce the population) control human populations growth. Nevertheless, given a scenario of rising populations, continued over-production and over-consumption, and the negative ecological consequences that follow, it is not unreasonable to contemplate that the 6th wave of extinction may spread to the human population. As the well-known scholar, James Lovelock (2016/1979) argued, this is perhaps nature’s plan because it needs to rid itself of the species that is driving it into a state of disequilibrium in order to preserve itself.

This article provided an overview of key concepts in political economic green criminology or PEG-C (Lynch & Long, 2024). PEG-C arguments are intimately connected to environmental sociology and Marxist ecology. The insights from these works allow us to penetrate through the mainstream views of capitalism, and to understand the ways in which capitalism and nature are in conflict with another, and how capitalism must destroy nature in order to expand. Here, we engaged in some preliminary discussion of how green criminology can employ political economic arguments to frame and understand the extinction of species, including humans. Species extinction is a widespread, global problem, and in order to be comprehended adequately requires adopting perspectives with a global frame of reference, as illustrated in this work.

Notes

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