The Jumbo Carbon Footprint of a Surf-and-Turf Dinner

Clearcutting of tropical mangrove forests to create shrimp ponds and cattle pastures contributes significantly to greenhouse gases and global warming, according to findings reported in the May 2017 issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. “The results mean that 1,603 pounds of carbon dioxide are released for every pound of shrimp, and 1,440 pounds of carbon dioxide for each pound of beef” from mangrove forest conversion, says J. Boone Kauffman, an ecologist at Oregon State University who led the project. Those numbers were obtained with a new measurement called the land-use carbon footprint. It records the amount of carbon stored in an intact mangrove forest, the greenhouse gas emissions from conversion of that forest to aquaculture or agriculture, and the quantity of the shrimp or beef produced over the life of the land’s use.