(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Greg Asner, Arizona State University

(THE CONVERSATION) Humans are dismantling and disrupting natural ecosystems around the globe and changing Earth's climate. Over the past 50 years, actions like farming, logging, hunting, development and global commerce have caused record losses of species on land and at sea. Animals, birds and reptiles are disappearing tens to hundreds of times faster than the natural rate of extinction over the past 10 million years.

Now the world is also conte...