This article studies discursive formations of climate change in texts by thecontemporary climate activist movement’s most famous character, Greta Thunberg.This study critically analyses the Greta Thunberg message and discusses the kindof worlds her message evokes. In doing so, the author discusses what is beingincluded in and omitted from contemporary public understandings of climatechange. Three themes are identified and analysed in the Greta Thunberg message:science as truth; for the sake of the human child; and the apocalyptic futures andthe evocation of the past. It is argued that the Greta Thunberg message makessense because of how it resonates with a worldview related to the promises ofmodernity. Furthermore, one way of understanding the popularity of Thunberg’smessage is that it evokes dreams of a world that once was. It is suggested that theGreta Thunberg message evokes longing for the past, rather than the possibility ofexisting in an already changing climate.