Here we go, another example of why the climate change hoax movement is out of control: they take a real environmental issue, and drag it under the banner of “climate change”
(Treehugger) There’s perhaps no other animal on Earth so synonymous with all things diminutive as the modestly framed shrimp — but, as it turns out, not everything about those famed crustaceans is small. Biologists say that common shrimp farming methods across Asia are so devastating to fragile ecosystems as to make ordering a simple shrimp cocktail one of the worst things you could do for the environment in the name of grabbing some grub.
In an attempt to measure the economic costs of deforestation and habitat loss, Oregon State University biologist J. Boone Kauffman set out to quantify the oft overlooked true pricetag of harvesting shrimp. According to the researcher, over half of the shrimp consumed in the world originate from farms in Asia, with most of those farms having been established on land where mangrove forests once stood. And, as if that weren’t bad enough, the ecologically impactful farms are horribly inefficient.
How’s this for mindboggling: it takes five square miles of cleared mangrove forest to produce just over two pounds of shrimp — and that land is typically left depleted within ten years and rendered unusable for another forty. By comparison, the devastation left behind from cattle-ranch deforestation seems, well, quite rosy.
“The carbon footprint of the shrimp from this land use is about 10-fold greater than the land use carbon footprint of an equivalent amount of beef produced from a pasture formed from a tropical rainforest,” Kauffman tells the AFP, via Phys Org.
There’s no denying that the ecological degradation is horrific from a true environmental standpoint. Yet, instead of decrying the actual impact for what it is, the Warmists have to hijack the issue and place it under their banner, which deflects from solutions necessary to deal with the issue. And causes many people to roll their eyes when they see the phrase “climate change” and “carbon footprint.” This is one of the things that drives me nuts about the Warmists, especially since their solutions seem to be “tax people” but never actually deal with the issue.
Over to the Physorg article
If the seafood is produced on a typical Asian fish farm, a 100-gram (3.5 ounce) serving “has an ecosystem carbon footprint of an astounding 198 kilograms (436 pounds) of CO2,” biologist J. Boone Kauffman said.
Who gives a crap? I’m more concerned with the what happens to the land. But, let’s go back to something else
The farms are inefficient, producing just one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of shrimp for 13.4 square kilometers (five square miles) of mangrove, while the ponds created are abandoned in just three to nine years because disease, soil acidification and contamination destroy them, he wrote.
Seriously? 2.2 pounds of shrimp for 5 square miles of clear cut land? I’m not buying it.
I expect all Warmists to stop eating shrimp immediately.
The 2.2 pounds per 5 square miles stat is one of those numbers that doesn’t pass the smell test. If it were accurate, then I have personally decimated an area equivalent to most Asian countries over the course of my lifetime. I don’t think so.
d(^_^)b
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressiveâ€
Yeah, but we Must Save Gaia From Immolation! Or something, which involves a tax.
I agree with Liberty at Stake. Two pounds per five square miles? My first thought upon reading this was “horse pucky.” And shrimp are grown on farms? I always thought they caught them in the ocean with nets.
My question is… will NYC, San Fran, LA, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, and DC all now do without shrimp cocktails at their parties?
“There’s no denying that the ecological degradation is horrific from a true environmental standpoint.”
For you, maybe. I have no problem with it, because what hippies call ‘degradation’, I call ‘improvement’.
For instance, when they destroyed the desert in Las Vegas to put in… well, Las Vegas, it was a MASSIVE improvement over what was there before. And in that same area, hippies SILL call the lake behind the Hoover dam ‘ecological degradation’. Screw hippies.
And don’t get me started on all the benefits that we recieved from killing all of those damned buffalos. Eh, that’s a story for another time :).
Mmmmm, I think I will have a boatload of shrimp for lunch. Sounds yummy. And you environmentalists, can go pound sand. As always, instead of logical reasonable means of correcting any problem, they have to jump the shark. Or shrimp in this case.
Heh! I’m sure not giving up shrimp. Love those little critters. But, most of what we get here in NC is from our own coasts. I even checked the packaging at Kroger yesterday.
I wish we could get locally grown shrimp (even if by local we mean NC!) here! Most of all the shrimp we get at a grocery store is from Asia. In certain months at our seafood stores, it comes from down south.
Hello Kevin,
Don’t forget the near complete cities of New Orleans, San Francisco, New York City, Washington DC, parts of Seattle, some areas of southern MI (nope not gonna spell it), and how many of our beaches are fake?
How much have we changed (managed) our major river systems and the Great Lakes for the sake of commercial traffic and flood control?
OH… Let’s not forget the millions of acres in Amazon area that was clear cut, in order to grow biofuel.