ABSTRACT
The greatest causes of biodiversity loss today are climate change, habitat destruction, invasive species, pollution, population and overkill. Climate change, habitat destruction and alien invasive species should figure more prominently than overkill and the marketing of products derived from endangered species. The law of the United States, however, imposes its clearest, harshest sanctions precisely where the drivers of extinction are weakest: when humans consciously capture or kill other living things. More helpfully, the Endangered Species Act has been adapted to address habitat destruction on private land and to mitigate climate change.
