No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference

by Greta Thunberg

Overview

The #1 New York Times bestseller by Time's 2019 Person of the Year

"Greta Thunberg is already one of our planet’s greatest advocates." —Barack Obama

The groundbreaking speeches of Greta Thunberg, the young climate activist who has become the voice of a generation, including her historic address to the United Nations 

In August 2018 a fifteen-year-old Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg, decided not to go to school one day in order to protest the climate crisis. Her actions sparked a global movement, inspiring millions of students to go on strike for our planet, forcing governments to listen, and earning her a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.

No One Is Too Small to Make A Difference brings you Greta in her own words, for the first time. Collecting her speeches that have made history across the globe, from the United Nations to Capitol Hill and mass street protests, her book is a rallying cry for why we must all wake up and fight to protect the living planet, no matter how powerless we feel. Our future depends upon it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143133568
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/12/2019
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	4.20(w) x 6.90(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	940L (what's this?)

About the Author

Greta Thunberg was born in 2003. In August 2018 she started a school strike that became a movement called Fridays For Future, which has inspired school strikes for climate action in more than 150 countries involving millions of students. Thunberg has spoken at climate rallies across Europe, and at the United Nations COP24 in Poland and the World Economic Forum in Davos. In September 2019 she spoke in New York City at the UN Climate Action Summit. She has won the prestigious Prix Liberté and been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Thunberg is vegan, and doesn't fly, in order to live a low-carbon life.

Read an Excerpt

Our Lives Are in Your Hands

Climate March

Stockholm, September 8, 2018

Last summer, a number of leading climate scientists wrote that we have at most three years to reverse growth in greenhouse-gas emissions if we're going to reach the goals set in the Paris Agreement.

Over a year and two months have now passed, and in that time many other scientists have said the same thing and a lot of things have got worse and greenhouse-gas emissions continue to increase. So maybe we have even less time than the one year and ten months those scientists said we have left.

If people knew this they wouldn;t need to ask me why I'm so 'passionate about climate change'.

If people knew that the scientists say that we have a 5 percent chance of meeting the Paris target, and if people knew what a nightmare scenario we will face if we don't keep global warming below 2°C, they wouldn't need to ask me why I'm on school strike outside parliament.

Because if everyone knew how serious the situation is and how little is actually being done, everyone would come and sit down beside us.

In Sweden, we live our lives as if we had the resources of 4.2 planets. Our individual carbon footprint is one of the worst in the world. This means that Sweden steals 3.2 years of natural resources from future generations every year. Those of us who are part of these future generations would like Sweden to stop doing that.

Right now.

This is not a political text. Our school strike has nothing to do with party politics.

Because the climate and the biosphere don't care about our politics and our empty words for a single second.

They only care about what we actually do.

This is a cry for help.

To all the newspapers who still don't write about and report on climate change, even though they said that the climate was 'the critical question of our time' when the Swedish forests were burning this summer.

To all of you who have never treated this crisis as a crisis.

To all the influencers who stand up for everything except the climate and the environment.

To all the political parties that pretend to take the climate question seriously.

To all the politicians that ridicule us on social media, and have named and shamed me so that people tell me that I'm retarded, a bitch and a terrorist, and many other things.

To all of you who choose to look the other way every day because you seem more frightened of the changes that can prevent catastrophic climate change than the catastrophic climate change itself.

Your silence is almost worst of all.

The future of all the coming generations rests on your shoulders.

Those of us who are still children can't change what you do now once we're old enough to do something about it.

A lot of people say that Sweden is a small country, that it doesn't matter what we do. But I think that if a few girls can get headlines all over the world just by not going to school for a few weeks, imagine what we could do together if we wanted to.

Every single person counts.

Just like every single emission counts.

Every single kilo.

Everything counts.

So please, treat the climate crisis like the acute crisis it is and give us a future.

Our lives are in your hands.

Editorial Reviews

"Greta Thunberg is already one of our planet’s greatest advocates." —Barack Obama

“[Greta Thunberg’s] just 16, but her voice has woken up the world. . . . An inspiring call to action.” —People

“A powerhouse compendium of [Greta’s] greatest hits.” —Teen Vogue

“When I turned in my book last September, I was skeptical that dramatic political progress on climate change was even possible, since so little had been accomplished over the past few decades. We’re still moving far, far too slowly to avoid climate catastrophe, but Greta Thunberg’s book of speeches—and even more so, her incredibly inspiring turn as global warming’s Joan of Arc, leading millions of protestors into the streets all across the world—made me realize that my own political cynicism is just another form of naivete. And that climate change is much too important to ever give up on.” —David Wallace–Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth

“Thunberg has always been refreshingly—and necessarily—blunt in her demands for action from world leaders who refuse to address climate change. With clarity and unbridled passion, she presents her message that climate change is an emergency that must be addressed immediately, and she fills her speeches with punchy sound bites delivered in her characteristic pull-no-punches style . . . . A tiny book . . . with huge potential impact.” —Kirkus, starred review

From the Publisher

★ 2019-11-03
A collection of articulate, forceful speeches made from September 2018 to September 2019 by the Swedish climate activist who was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Speaking in such venues as the European and British Parliaments, the French National Assembly, the Austrian World Summit, and the U.N. General Assembly, Thunberg has always been refreshingly—and necessarily—blunt in her demands for action from world leaders who refuse to address climate change. With clarity and unbridled passion, she presents her message that climate change is an emergency that must be addressed immediately, and she fills her speeches with punchy sound bites delivered in her characteristic pull-no-punches style: "I don't want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act." In speech after speech, to persuade her listeners, she cites uncomfortable, even alarming statistics about global temperature rise and carbon dioxide emissions. Although this inevitably makes the text rather repetitive, the repetition itself has an impact, driving home her point so that no one can fail to understand its importance. Thunberg varies her style for different audiences. Sometimes it is the rousing "our house is on fire" approach; other times she speaks more quietly about herself and her hopes and her dreams. When addressing the U.S. Congress, she knowingly calls to mind the words and deeds of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy. The last speech in the book ends on a note that is both challenging and upbeat: "We are the change and change is coming." The edition published in Britain earlier this year contained 11 speeches; this updated edition has 16, all worth reading.

A tiny book, not much bigger than a pamphlet, with huge potential impact.

Kirkus Reviews

With a measured pace and devastating directness, 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg delivers a selection of her speeches, including her excoriating 2019 address to the United Nations. Thunberg’s message is clear and pithy, and her Swedish-accented narration is passionate as she urges listeners to recognize climate change as an urgent global crisis. Even the repetition of facts and phrases across the speeches emphasizes Thunberg’s point: How many times must she exhort world leaders for climate justice before her words sink in? The final five speeches in the collection are performed by narrator Saskia Maarleveld, whose quiet fervor enlivens Thunberg’s words while maintaining the frankness that makes them so memorable. A bold and bracing call to action. R.A.H. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2019 - AudioFile

With a measured pace and devastating directness, 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg delivers a selection of her speeches, including her excoriating 2019 address to the United Nations. Thunberg’s message is clear and pithy, and her Swedish-accented narration is passionate as she urges listeners to recognize climate change as an urgent global crisis. Even the repetition of facts and phrases across the speeches emphasizes Thunberg’s point: How many times must she exhort world leaders for climate justice before her words sink in? The final five speeches in the collection are performed by narrator Saskia Maarleveld, whose quiet fervor enlivens Thunberg’s words while maintaining the frankness that makes them so memorable. A bold and bracing call to action. R.A.H. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2019 - AudioFile