No One Is Too Small To Make a Difference
By Greta Thunberg
Penguin Books, November, 2019
“No One Is Too Small To Make a Difference” is a collection of speeches about climate change written by famed young activist Greta Thunberg in September, 2019. Thunberg describes how world leaders are failing us and the future of our children and and makes an urgent demand for change.
”You say that nothing in life is black or white,”she writes. “But that is a lie. A very dangerous lie. Either we prevent a 1.5°C of warming or we don’t. There are no grey areas when it comes to survival.” Once you read a couple of the speeches, you realize how true Thunberg’s words are,
Thunberg must possess confidence and spunk. She addressed the European Economic and Social Committee as ‘spoiled irresponsible children’. And for good reason - in the rest of her speech she explains how the EU’s target for reducing greenhouse gases is half of what it needs to be to keep the level below 1.5°C.
I think this epitomizes the current state of climate change reform. How irresponsible must you be to be chastised by a sixteen year old?
Thunberg writes, “Now we probably don’t even have a future anymore. Because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable amounts of money. It was stolen from us every time you said that the sky was the limit, and that you only live once.”
How many times have I thought that there probably won’t be a future where I retire or get to spend time with my grandchildren because I believe that the world won’t last long enough for me to get there?
Thunberg’s speeches, while packing a reality gut-punch, also soften the blow by ending with the message that as long as we work together there is hope. I would recommend the book to teenage readers and anyone interested in activism.
Reviewed by Hannah Nolte. A student and an avid reader, she enjoys crafts, baking and Comic-Con.
