A new study has found that dozens of Antarctic tour guides have quit their jobs in recent years, unable to reconcile their environmental values with the ecological damage caused by the industry they worked in. Researchers interviewed 25 former guides who described watching glaciers calve, penguin colonies overrun by tourists, and record-breaking heat events firsthand, while feeling complicit in an industry that generates some of the highest CO₂ emissions of any form of tourism. Antarctic tourism (voyages to the remote, ice-covered continent at the bottom of the world) is growing rapidly, surpassing 120,000 visits in the 2025–26 season and projected to reach 450,000 per summer within a decade, raising urgent concerns about the long-term impact on one of Earth's last near-pristine ecosystems.