No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference
- May 22, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 14
★★★☆☆
At the age of 15, no longer content to wait for global powers to do something about the climate crisis beyond offering empty promises and vacuous agreements, Greta Thunberg began a series of school strikes to wake a sleeping world from its collective ignorance. From there, she quickly elevated to the international stage, giving speeches at climate rallies; in front of the United Nations; to the World Economic Forum, British and European Parliaments, and the United States Congress; on Facebook, radio, and television; and more. Her efforts earned her a Nobel Prize nomination. Those speeches, given from 2018 to 2020, are collected here in the first of Penguin Book’s Green Ideas series, 20 short books designed to “deepen our sense of our place in nature.”
Before reading No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, I’d heard of Greta Thunberg, but, admittedly, knew little more than the name and its connection to climate activism. As a 30-plus-year vegan who, once upon a time did his own fair share of activism, I applaud her efforts wholeheartedly and hope that those in power who have heard her words spoken directly to them were listening carefully and taking heed. I doubt it. Without access to the corridors of power—and I’m thinking of the accomplishments Bono has managed to help effectuate, though for very different causes—I worry that Thunberg might be (or become) little more than an environmentalist idol to a generation. It’s clear from her speeches that she has no interest in being a figurehead or that the science she diligently cites tells us there’s time for her generation to come to power to take the action those who currently hold it will not.
As you might imagine coming from a 15-to-17-year-old (and it feels wrong to criticize someone for doing something I absolutely believe in), the speeches themselves are more striking because of who’s giving them and to whom they’re being given than for their content or persuasiveness. Perhaps that’s the limitation of reading a speech outside of its moment—the words are there but without the setting, the power they’re imbued with is gone leaving them feeling flat and sterile. I don't think she's too worried; she has far more important things to do. And not that she needs to hear this from me (as if she would anyway), but Greta Thunberg, be bold and may mighty forces come to your aid. We all need it, whether we believe it or not.
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