“My name is Greta Thunberg. I am 16 years old. I come from Sweden. And I speak on behalf of future generations,” the climate change activist, school striker, and Nobel Prize nominee told MPs this year. “We children are not sacrificing our education and our childhood for you to tell us what you consider is politically possible in the society that you have created … we children are doing this to wake the adults up. We children are doing this for you to put your differences aside and start acting as you would in a crisis. We children are doing this because we want our hopes and dreams back.”
Thungberg has become the voice for a more environmentally conscious generation, and has encouraged protests all over the world, with 1.4 million people in over 100 countries joining the #YouthStrikeForClimate and weekly #FridaysForFuture action to fight for climate justice. Now the Dazed100-er is putting out a book titled No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, which collects some of her moving speeches from across her months as a global activist. Thunberg’s key speeches found in the upcoming book were made between September 2018 and April 2019, where she spoke at climate strikes, in parliaments around the worldl, and at the UN to spread her message about the climate emergency.
At age 15, the Swedish teen decided to stand up for climate change by striking from school and in just six months, she’s become an icon for this global movement.
“I want you to act as if the house is on fire. Because it is,” she said in one particularly moving talk at the World Economic Forum.
Penguin will also publish Thunberg’s family story Scenes from the Heart, written by Greta’s mother Malena Ernman, her sister Beate Ernman, her father Svante Thunberg, and Greta herself. All profits from both books will be donated to charity.
“Greta has already galvanised millions of children and adults around the world, and she’s only just getting started,” says Chloe Currens, the commissioning editor from Penguin Press.
No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference will be published on June 6 2019