BBC The One Show viewers divided over Greta Thunberg's…

BBC The One Show viewers divided over Greta Thunberg's appearance

The One Show viewers were left divided as they tuned in to the first edition of the show of the week. One of the guests on Monday night (October 31) installment of the BBC One show was Greta Thunberg.

The 19-year-old activist appeared live in the studio to chat to Lauren Laverne and Jermaine Jenas about her new book, The Climate Book, which is described as an essential handbook that is also authored by geophysicists, oceanographers and meteorologists.

Greta was asked about why her campaigning started, sharing how it actually began at home with herself before spreading to her parents. "When you're like 8, there’s not much you can do to make a big difference, so then you start small," the teen, from Sweden, said.

"I started with turning off the lights at home to save energy and that led to other things, which led to another thing and eventually I stopped flying, I became vegan and got my parents to do that too."

She went on: “I started talking to them and they started listening to my concerns. By making them change, it also gave me the sort of courage I needed move to start school striking. So starting somewhere is really good, starting at home for example."

Greta also spoke about the importance of people doing their bit in the midst of the energy crisis. "It’s very understandable to feel overwhelmed because the things we’re talking about, the things we’re dealing with are existential threats to humanity unlike anything the world has ever seen before so it's very understandable to not know where to begin and what to do about it," she said.

"“That's why for me it helped to do something concrete and that I started to read up more about it. I started to educate myself and when I became fully aware of it, I sort of knew myself, what I could do and then I made the decision to start school striking for the climate but also as I mentioned earlier connect with other people who feel the same thing, who share the same values as you."

Sir Tony Robinson was also welcomed onto the show's famous green sofa with his rescue dog Holly Berry. And taking time out of his interview, Tony heaped praise on Greta. He said: "Greta that book is fantastic."

The 19-year-old activist appeared live in the studio to chat to Lauren Laverne and Jermaine Jenas (BBC)

He then joked to the presenters: "Hyping up someone else’s book on a show like this is ridiculous. Honestly, if people are just going to read one book out of the next five years, I think they should read Greta’s book.”

He added: “It’s intelligent, it’s entertaining, it’s really interesting but it says things like, ‘You’ll probably get really bored talking about the environmental crisis sometimes, but that’s understandable’… at the end of the day you come out knowing so much more, so good on you.”

And The One Show viewers were soon flocking to social media to comment, with some seemingly not impressed, including @suzysasha tweeted: “Oh no, Greta is on, time to switch off!"

However, plenty of others were full of praise for the Swedish activist. @Cogs39 stated: “I can see why young people find @GretaThunberg so inspirational. It is their future she is fighting for. Hope her 30+ hour train journey home isn’t too torturous!” @beginningwithm wrote: "Greta Thunberg is really impressive. The amount of hate thrown at her and yet she just dusts it off and continues to fight for what she knows is right." @jaco45er added: "Greta Thunberg is an incredible young lady. She has her haters (losers) but one day I wager we will look back and see she was 100% correct to do what she does."

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