The Thammasat University Library has acquired two new books that should be useful for TU students interested in the environment, ecology, future studies, earth science, geology, history, political science, sociology, and related subjects. They are by and about the environmental activist Greta Thunberg.

The Thammasat University Library has acquired two new books that should be useful for TU students interested in the environment, ecology, future studies, earth science, geology, history, and related subjects. They are by and about the young environmental activist Greta Thunberg. No one is too small to make a difference is a collection of speeches by Greta Thunberg. It is shelved in the General Stacks of the Pridi Banomyong Library. Also in the General Stacks of the Pridi Banomyong Library is We are all Greta: be inspired to save the world is about climate change.

The TU Library also owns many books about different aspects of climate change. 

Greta Thunberg was born in 2003 in Sweden, so she is still younger than many TU students.

She became noted for urging world leaders to take action to address the climate crisis.

At age 15, she began to protest outside the Swedish parliament to call for more action on climate change, holding up a sign reading Skolstrejk för klimatet (School strike for climate).

Other students joined her initiative.

In 2018, Thunberg spoke at the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference and student strikes followed around the world.

Here are some statements and observations by Greta Thunberg:

• It shouldn’t be up to us children and teenagers to make people wake up around the world…We need to care about each other more. They say it’s too hard — it’s too much of a challenge. But that’s what we are doing here. We have not given up because this is a matter of life and death for countless people…. Either we choose to go on as a civilization or we don’t.

Twitter (5 June 2020)

• I’m asking everyone to step up and join me in support of UNICEF’s vital work to save children’s lives, to protect health and continue education… Like the climate crisis, the coronavirus pandemic is a child-rights crisis… It will affect all children, now and in the long-term, but vulnerable groups will be impacted the most.

New York Daily News, 11 May 2020

• I am here to say, our house is on fire… I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is… I want people to unite behind the science… And that is what we have to realize, that that is what we have to do right now.. I’m not the one who’s saying these things. I’m not the one who we should be listening to. And I say that all the time. I say we need to listen to the scientists.

Democracy Now,11 September 2019

• We must hold the older generations accountable for the mess they have created…

You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess. Even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake. You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to your children.

We are about to sacrifice our civilization for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue to make enormous amounts of money. […] But it is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few. […] You say that you love your children above everything else. And yet you are stealing their future.

Democracy Now, 13 December 2018

Thailand and Climate Change

In September of last year, an opinion article in Khaosod English asked why the Greta Thunberg effect has not yet reached Thailand:

Environmental activist Greta Thunberg, of Sweden, addresses the Climate Action Summit in the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters, Sept. 23, 2019. Image: Associated Press

Why do some people feel so threatened by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg?

One part of the answer is that she’s just 16, with no formal expertise on what she believes to be impending global climate catastrophe and mass extinction.

Patriarchy and paternalism were turned upside-down when Thunberg began to take time off school to demonstrate outside the Swedish parliament every Friday in August last year…

Alas, so far Thailand is feeling little impact from the Greta Thunberg effect. Last Friday, when Bangkok held its Climate Strike protest, only 150 or so showed up, mostly expats and foreign students with signs in English. When it comes to climate change, Thailand seems stuck in a gigantic, single-use plastic bubble.

Thunberg reportedly convinced her parents to become vegan and give up flying in order to reduce their carbon footprints. In contrast, many Thai vegans are only vegan because they want to go to heaven, to be reincarnated into a good life, or because they pity the animals. Few think about their carbon footprint.

While this observation may be generally true, the Kingdom certainly has its climate activists, like one described in The Asean Post, also in September 2019:

12-year-old Ralyn Satidtanasarn, known by her nickname Lilly, collects plastic waste during the Trash Hero cleaning initiative at the Khung Bang Kachao urban forest and beach in Bangkok, on 25 August, 2019… Skipping school to glide through a dirty Bangkok canal on a paddleboard, Lilly fishes out rubbish in her mission to clean up Thailand, where the average person uses eight plastic bags every single day.

“I am a kid at war,” the bubbly 12-year-old says after a painstaking hour-long routine picking up cans, bags and bottles bobbing in the canal.

“I try to stay optimistic but I am also angry. Our world is disappearing,” she adds.

Thailand is the sixth largest global contributor to ocean pollution, and plastic is a scourge.

Whether it’s for wrapping up street food, takeaway coffees or for groceries, Thais use 3,000 single use bags per year – 12 times more than someone from the European Union. 

In June, Lilly won her first victory: she persuaded Central, a major supermarket in Bangkok, to stop giving out plastic bags in its stores once a week.

“I told myself that if the government did not listen to me, it would be necessary to speak directly to those who distribute plastic bags and convince them to stop,” she explains.

This month some of the biggest brands, including the operator of the ubiquitous 7-Eleven convenience stores, pledged to stop handing out single-use plastic bags by January next year.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation also reported on Lilly in January of this year:

A 12-year-old girl kneels next to a dog while posing for a photo in front of a dirty canal.

Lilly has been campaigning for the environment since she was eight.

It’s a sweaty Saturday morning in Bangkok, and while most 12-year-olds are winding down for the year, Ralyn Satidtanasan — or Lilly as she’s called — is getting ready to scoop plastic out of a canal.

“There’s so much single-use plastic in this canal alone, imagine how much there is in the ocean,” she tells the ABC on a boat in a canal in north-west Bangkok.

“It’s extremely shocking because if you think about it, this is just not even 1 per cent of what we’re seeing in the oceans today.”

Lilly is a regular at weekly Bangkok events organised by Trash Hero — a volunteer group that picks up rubbish at dozens of locations around the world.

The Trash Heroes hold weekly events in Bangkok and pick up rubbish in 12 different countries.

But it is Lilly’s work fronting up to retailers and the government, asking them to rethink their policies on single-use plastic, that has seen her dubbed the Greta Thunberg of Asia.

From January 1 single-use plastic bags will be banned in major stores in Bangkok…

Lilly says she looks up to Greta Thunberg.

“She’s a huge idol for kids around the world. She does help us with trying to feel more confident in doing these things, because if you really think about it, she teaches us that we are not too small to make a big change.

“She really teaches us that we can make a difference, no matter how small we are.”

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)