The answer to that, I think, is: it’s not very important how great she is or how great any such figure is. What matters are the issues.
Greta Thunberg is saying and doing good things, but one cautionary thing to say here: it’s not good that we focus these issues so much on one person (of any gender or age or ethnicity). But that is what has happened in her case and many others. We see her face all over the place now, and pieces focusing on her personality, her family, her age, her background, etc.
What about the actual ideas, the activism, the changes needed?
It’s undemocratic to focus the attention on one person when the isssues affect us all and require us all to be involved. It’s also a dangerous tactic as if that hero figure falls, for some reason, there is a good chance they will take the wider movement with them.
As even Chomsky, who is probably the most well known left winger of the last 40 years, has said:
“We should not be looking for heroes… we should be looking for good ideas.”
The Guardian newspaper loves to focus on ‘star’ left wingers, which is highly ironic, as the idea of a star - someone more important than the rest of us - is very undemocratic. A recent article there features a big close up of Greta’s face, and they ask ‘famous fans’ to put points to Greta, which is quite contrary to the main point:
“The real power belongs to the people.”
Not just the famous ones.
These issues of the environment, economics, injustice, etc are something we all have to change. Let’s have less personalities and more people power, please.