Reviews

It's April 2024. The remaining global carbon budget for a 50 percent chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is estimated to be 275 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide at the beginning of the year. At the current rate of global CO₂ emissions, this budget would be used up in approximately seven years. In 2019, when most of Greta's speeches in this collection were written, 2030 was considered to be the estimated tipping point. Our rate of CO2 emissions has hardly changed, which should make us all PANIC.

And this is what all of Greta's speeches are about. Place yourself in her situation: your audience are politicians, maybe celebrities, maybe regular people who happen to tune in. Your responsibility? Get them to take action on climate change prevention. You're probably allocated a few minutes of their time, and as to their undivided focus, maybe a few seconds at best. So the text here is short and snappy, and aims to be an inspirational call to action. This is not the place for data and resources, but more so demonstrates how to communicate about climate change in order to create the sense of urgency that it deserves.

So for me, this has been a great learning in how I get this message out in the wild too. I am very passionate about our planet, living in harmony with nature, nurturing sustainable processes that the entire world has access to. So it will be repetitive material to go through this collection as a reader, because they are from the same year, with the content slightly adjusted based on where Greta is speaking. And that is really my only complaint. She is honest, open, and puts the problem in simple terms, looking to connect the people with the science, which is something we don't do nearly enough of. We don't take advantage of the massive amount of evidence that we have on how we are ruining our ecosystems and endangering our survival. This needs to change and we should all be part of that change for not even our future, but even our present health wellbeing.