Published

1 year ago

December 24, 2024

Alice Rush

Cruise ships are producing higher levels of toxic air pollutants than they did before the pandemic, according to a new study by the European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E).

The analysis, “Europe’s luxury cruise ships emit as much toxic sulphur as 1bn cars,” found that despite the introduction of a sulphur cap four years ago, the 218 cruise ships operating in European waters in 2023 emitted the sulphur oxide (SOx) equivalent of a billion cars, a press release from T&E said.

“The pandemic provided some respite for port cities, but this is now well and truly over. Cruising is back and tourist hotspots like Barcelona and Athens are again choking on toxic air pollution from cruise ships. Venice has shown that tackling cruise ship pollution is possible, but bans aren’t the only way. Ports can significantly reduce pollution levels by forcing ships to plug into electricity at the port instead of running their engines, and by supporting the adoption of zero-emission fuels,” said Constance Dijkstra, T&E shipping campaigner, in the press release.

In comparison with 2019, the sheer number of cruise ships, how much time they spent in the vicinity of ports, as well as the amount of fuel they consumed, all rose by 23 to 24 percent. This led to a nine percent increase in SOx emissions, a 25 percent increase in particulate matter 2.5 and an 18 percent jump in nitrogen oxide emissions.

“The larger companies have more vessels and bigger ships,” said Jacob Armstrong, T&E shipping policy manager, as The Guardian reported. “But bigger isn’t better when it comes to emissions.”

*The Oasis of the Seas cruise ship emits smoke in the port of Barcelona on June 9, 2024. Jordi Boixareu / NurPhoto*

The report found that the most polluted European port was Barcelona, followed by the coastal port of Civitavecchia — northwest of Rome — and Piraeus in Greece. Cruise ships in Barcelona emitted nearly three times the SOx than all the city’s cars. In Europe, SOx limits for cars are 100 times stricter than those for ships.

Air pollutants produced by cruise ships at Venice’s port fell 80 percent after the city banned large cruise vessels. T&E said it proves air pollution can be dealt with, but greater electrification of ports will be necessary “to save lives.”

“Venice, on the other hand, improved significantly,” the press release said. “The most cruise polluted port in 2019 dropped to 41st last year following a ban on large cruise ships entering the port that was introduced in 2021, leading to an 80% fall in SOx emissions.”

Even with Venice’s emissions falling, Italy still surpassed Spain as the European country with the most pollution from cruise ships. Norway had the most cruise traffic, though with smaller ships, and came in fourth in cruise ship pollution overall.

Green Living

Earth911 Inspiration: Be True to the Earth — Edward Abbey

Published

3 days ago

May 22, 2026

Alice Rush

This week’s quote is from American novelist and pioneering environmentalist Edward Abbey: “I am not an atheist but an earthiest. Be true to the earth.”

Earth911 inspirations. Post them, share your desire to help people think of the planet first, every day. Click the poster to get a larger image.

This poster was originally published on January 31, 2020.

The post Earth911 Inspiration: Be True to the Earth — Edward Abbey appeared first on Earth911.

https://earth911.com/inspire/earth911-inspiration-be-true-to-the-earth-edward-abbey/

Green Living

10 Books to Counter Consumerism

Published

5 days ago

May 20, 2026

Alice Rush

We are constantly bombarded by messages that tell us we need more stuff to be happy. The average American household contains around 300,000 items. The average home size has roughly tripled since the 1950s, and we still rent self-storage units by the millions to hold the overflow.

If you are rethinking your relationship to consumer culture – whether by choice or necessity – we’ve rounded up a list of books to make breaking up with consumerism and easier to understand which of our purchases are really necessary.

(Amazon links are provided for convenience. Your local library and independent bookstore are excellent first stops.)

Empire of Things

by Frank Trentmann

Trentmann’s sweeping 2016 history follows material culture from late Ming China and Renaissance Italy through to today’s global supply chains. He shows that consumerism is not a recent American export but a centuries-long international phenomenon, one that has reshaped households, cities, and the planet.

Empire of Things is dense but never preachy, and it gives readers the long view needed to understand what we are actually pushing back against.

No Logo – 10th Anniversary Edition

by Naomi Klein

No Logo was a movement manifesto when it appeared in 1999, and its dissection of branding, sweatshop labor, and corporate cultural takeover reads as prescient now that nearly every screen on earth is an ad surface. To take the next step, pair this read with Klein’s more recent argument about capitalism and ecological collapse, How To Change Everything.

The Conscious Closet

by Elizabeth L. Cline

Cline first exposed the human and environmental costs of fast fashion in Overdressed (2012). The Conscious Closet is the practical follow-up: how to clean out, repair, swap, and rebuild a wardrobe without funding the industry that produces an estimated 92 million tons of textile waste each year. It is the most actionable book on this list for anyone with a closet.

The Myths of Happiness

by Sonja Lyubomirsky

Psychology professor Sonja Lyubomirsky brings the receipts. In The Myths of Happiness, she walks through decades of research showing that material milestones — the raise, the upgrade, the bigger house — produce short bursts of satisfaction that fade quickly. What actually sustains wellbeing is rarely for sale. A clarifying read for anyone tempted to outshop their way to contentment.

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

by Jenny Odell

Waste is coming for our minds, too. Odell argues that our scarcest resource is attention — and that the platforms we use have turned it into the raw material of a trillion-dollar industry. How to Do Nothing is not a digital-detox manual; it is a case for reclaiming attention as a political act, with consequences for everything from bird-watching to civic life. More relevant in 2026 than when it was published in 2019.

Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

by Jason Hickel

Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel makes the case that endless GDP growth is incompatible with a livable planet, and that “green growth” is mostly a marketing exercise. Less Is More (2020) traces 500 years of capitalism and lays out what a degrowth economy could actually look like — one organized around human and ecological flourishing rather than perpetual expansion. The book has helped move degrowth from the margins of academia into the mainstream of the climate debate.

The Day the World Stops Shopping

by J.B. MacKinnon

Journalist J.B. MacKinnon designed The Day the World Stops Shopping (2021) as a thought experiment — what would happen if global consumption dropped by 25%? — and then watched the pandemic run a version of the experiment in real time. He travels from Namibian hunter-gatherer communities to American big-box retail, talking to economists, ecologists, and CEOs. The result is one of the most readable accounts of why we shop, why we cannot easily stop, and what we would gain if we did.

Consumed: The Need for Collective Change

by Aja Barber

Writer and consultant Aja Barber connects fashion, colonialism, and climate in Consumed (2021), a debut that has become a touchstone for the ethical fashion conversation. Where Cline writes as a practitioner, Barber writes as a systems critic, tracing the textile trade’s roots in slavery and racial inequality and asking readers to confront why we fill emotional gaps with purchases. Pointed, generous, and built to be read in two sittings.

Wasteland: The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future

by Oliver Franklin-Wallis

If consumerism is the input, waste is the output we work hardest not to see. Award-winning journalist Oliver Franklin-Wallis follows that output across continents in Wasteland (2023) — from New Delhi’s landfills and Ghana’s secondhand clothing markets to nuclear storage sites and the corporate origins of curbside recycling. Named a Best Book of 2023 by The New Yorker, The Guardian, and Kirkus, it is essential reading for anyone who has ever wondered where “away” actually goes.

Fixation: How to Have Stuff Without Breaking the Planet

by Sandra Goldmark

Sandra Goldmark runs a pop-up repair shop in New York and serves as director of sustainability at Barnard College. Fixation (2020) is her plainspoken case for getting things fixed instead of replaced, and for building a circular economy where good design, reuse, and repair are the default. Her five-rule formula — borrowed in spirit from Michael Pollan — is the most quotable advice on this list: “Have good stuff. Not too much. Mostly reclaimed. Care for it. Pass it on.”

What You Can Do

Reading is a start, not a finish. A few next steps:

Start at the library. Most of these titles are available through WorldCat or your local branch. Borrowing keeps a book in circulation and out of a landfill.
Audit one category of stuff before adding to it. Pick clothes, kitchenware, or electronics. Inventory what you already own before the next purchase. Most of us own more than we remember.
Find a repair option in your community. Take the time to locate repair, reuse, and donation outlets near you before tossing anything broken.
Support right-to-repair policy. Several U.S. states have passed right-to-repair laws since 2023; the rest are weighing them. Individual purchasing choices matter more when manufacturers are required to make repair possible.
Read one of these books and talk about it. Anti-consumption is harder alone. Book clubs, mutual-aid groups, and faith communities have all become surprising hubs for this work.

Editor’s Note: Originally authored by Gemma Alexander on June 18, 2020, this article was updated in May 2026.

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https://earth911.com/inspire/10-books-to-counter-consumerism/

Green Living

Best of Sustainability In Your Ear: EarthX CEO Peter Simek on Cultivating Bipartisan Climate Strategies

Published

5 days ago

May 20, 2026

Alice Rush

Subscribe to receive transcripts by email. Read along with this episode.

For 15 years, the Dallas-based climate conference the EarthX conference has created space where fossil fuel executives and environmental activists, Republican appropriations chairs and Democratic climate hawks, find common ground. The organization targets three core stakeholders: the corporate world, policymakers, and investors seeking startups where environmental solutions are baked into the bottom line. Peter Simek, EarthX’s CEO, explains how reframing climate action around shared values—stewardship, economic opportunity, and love of the land—unlocks support that crisis messaging alone cannot reach.

The doom story doesn’t sell, Simek explained. “We’re not motivated as a species by doomsday language. It puts people in fight-or-flight mode.” He points out how climate became an identity issue, tangled up in culture-war debates over hamburgers and gas-powered trucks, when the real conversation should center on clean air, clean water, and protecting the places we love. “The EPA and the Clean Air and Clean Water Act were passed during the Nixon administration,” he notes. “There are ways to message this that appeals across lines.”

Peter Simek, CEO of EarthX, is our guest on *Sustainability In Your Ear*.

Simek bets heavily on bottom-up action as EarthX works to build bridges. States, cities, and private capital often move faster than federal mandates, he argues, and they’re harder to reverse with a single executive order. Texas leads the nation in renewable energy deployment because wind and solar make bottom-line sense. “Even as there’s a policy turn against it, there’s still the driving reality that solar and wind are viable energy sources,” he says. A new event in 2026, the EarthX Institute, will focus on two policy priorities: nuclear energy, where bipartisan consensus is growing, and urban biodiversity.

Whether conversations at forums like EarthX translate into policy velocity that matches the pace of climate impacts remains to be seen. Simek says he stays focused on tracking downstream results, specifically the investments funded, the coalitions built, and the policies incubated from the local level up. “It’s about finding those ways in which there’s common sense, common ground, common values,” he says. “Elements to talking about nature and the environment that no one can really disagree with.”

Learn more about EarthX and its upcoming April 2026 conference at earthx.org.