Book Review: No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg
No One is Too Small to Make a Difference is a collection of Greta Thunberg’s most powerful speeches about climate change. But is this tiny manifesto worth a read? Here’s my review.
No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg Summary
No One is Too Small to Make a Difference collects Greta Thunberg’s history-making speeches, from addresses at climate rallies around the world audiences at the UN, the World Economic Forum, and the British Parliament.
Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration.
Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.
Source: Penguin
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No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg Review
No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference is a short collection of speeches by Greta Thunberg, a young climate change activist from Sweden. It contains 14 speeches that she made from September 2018 to September 2019.
About halfway through this little book, I sighed and thought to myself that I would only rate this book 2 stars. I thought it was a great shame as I had such high hopes for a book written by one of the world’s most inspirational young girls.
The reason I was going to give this book such a low rating is because it’s terribly repetitive. The same facts, phrases and rhetoric are used over and over meaning that lots of these speeches are the same.
I then wondered to myself why she would make the same speech over and over again.
And it dawned on me that this was because absolutely nothing was being done about the issues that she discussed. Despite the marches, school strikes and inspirational speeches, nothing was changing.
As Greta herself rightly points out, politicians are not doing anything about climate change. Nothing that matters in any case. Policies in all wealthy nations revolve around economics, even when it comes to climate change. They often focus on how we can keep living as we do whilst reducing our impact on the planet.
But the fact of the matter is that we simply need to stop our destructive practices once and for all. Economic growth should not be a consideration in our climate policies when the stakes are this high. Did you know we have a mere 7.5 years left before we deplete our CO2 budget?
To Greta, the issue of climate change is black and white. Either we’re going to hit our climate targets or we’re not. The way things are going, it looks like we won’t. As such, I’m sure Greta will go on repeating her speeches until someone takes notice, and hopefully, they do.
I was blown away from the very first speech that such words came from the mouth of someone so young, to such a large audience. I am in awe of her. Some say her speeches are hyperbolic, but that’s precisely how they need to be to get people to sit up and pay attention. It is far too late for niceties – our planet is dying.
I am still minded to think that it was a little lazy to simply copy the speeches into a book when these could simply be watched for free on YouTube. Indeed they may be more effective by video. I think that a short book by Greta summarising these ideas would have been quite interesting.
However, I have given the publishers the benefit of the doubt and assumed that the repetition was, in fact, intentional and designed to impress upon its readers that nothing has been done about the issues Greta outlines. There is nothing at all wrong with the content, but this book loses one star for format.
Whether you choose to pick this book up yourself, watch Greta’s videos on YouTube or seek out her writing elsewhere, I would encourage you to do something.
Find a copy of No One Is Too Small To Make a Difference on:
Amazon | Bookshop.org
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