TikTok Tourism Is Ruining Antarctica

Antarctica was once considered a pristine land that would forever go unsullied by humanity’s worst instincts to pollute and degrade every area on earth. Things have changed.

Antarctica is now getting hit from all sides—from climate change melting ice sheets, to garbage floating in from long distances—and now Antarctic cruises are bringing in seemingly every other form of man-made destruction.

The New York Times published a feature about a cruise ship port in Ushuaia, Argentina, that has turned the small port town into a bustling hub of wealthy tourists who are more than willing to cough up $18,000 a pop for cruise tickets to Antarctica. Ushuaia has a nickname: “the end of the world.”

Fitting, considering that all this Antarctic tourism is making a mess of Antarctica.

Antarctica Used to Be Pristine. Now It’s Being Trashed by Tourists.

Since 2014, Antarctic tourism has spiked 215 percent. The cost of living in Ushuaia has subsequently exploded, pushing a lot of locals out of town, leaving the ones left behind to deal with a sudden and massive influx of pollution. With more tourists comes more carbon emissions, which totals about five tons of carbon per tourist.

As for Antarctica itself, its the sudden popularity as a vacation destination for the wealthy has riddled the once pristine land with all kinds of problems that stem from the same source: human activity fueled by commerce.

As Futurism points out, Antarctica has been taking a beating of late, all thanks to humanity and our desperate desire for vacations. Our presence in Antarctica is rapidly melting the snow, has introduced all manner of invasive species, and has even introduced graffiti to a place where, for decades, the closest such thing was an Antarctic researcher pissing their name into the snow.

I know. You want to go on vacations that are Instagrammable. The novelty of a trip like that will get you all sorts of social media acclaim that will surely fill the void in your soul. But maybe before you book that next trip, stop and think about whether you need to visit a gigantic ice cube in the first place, or whether we should probably leave it alone because it was better off without you in it.