Greta’s a force of nature
THERE’S a clever bit at the start of GRETA THUNBERG: AYEAR TO CHANGE THE WORLD (BBC1, 9pm), clearly designed to shame the young climate activist’s detractors. It features a declaration from Greta herself, interspersed by two clips.
“People say a lot of things about me,” she’s telling us. “People call me a brat, an idiot, and yet for reasons I don’t understand, people listen when I talk…”
In the first clip to which we momentarily break away, Donald Trump (remember him?) is addressing a rally of his supporters.
Trump merely has to mention Greta’s name to elicit a chorus of boos.
In the second video clip, Vladimir Putin is speaking on Russian television. “No one has explained to Greta,” he’s telling his audience, “that the modern world is complex and diverse.”
So there you have it. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Does one really want to echo the views of such ogres? Not on one’s nelly. So shut up and listen to Greta, that’s effectively the message.
Filmed during 2019 and 2020, this three-part series finds her on a global mission, witnessing climate change’s impact first-hand and tersely reminding world leaders of their promise to fight it.
In the Canadian Rockies, for example, she’s shown how a small temperature change can have a huge knock-on effect.
In California, she heads to what’s left of Paradise, the town devastated by deadly fires in 2018.
And then – slight change of plan – the UN climate conference, where she’s due to give her next speech, gets moved from Chile to Madrid.To ensure she still gets there, she ends up hitching a ride across the Atlantic on a catamaran. “It’s very symbolic that I sail,” Greta says, “because it sends a strong message.”
It actually sends a strong message that sailing makes you want to chuck your guts up, so I’m not sure how helpful this is, but at least she’s trying to stay true to her beliefs.
Still to be addressed in this series – there’s no sign in episode one – is whether the phenomenon of Greta herself can have its downside.Are some perhaps put off by the cultishness that’s come to surround her? Might this be counter-productive?
Also, what’s all this attention doing to her as a person? OK, so she rubs a lot of people up the wrong way, but that’s no excuse for some of the vile personal abuse to which she and her family have been subjected.
Reflecting on how her teenage years could have been very different, Greta remarks to her father: “You probably wish I’d picked up ballet dancing or something!”
“I do,” he replies, without hesitation. “I do. I do…”