The Carbon Diaries 2015

by Saci Lloyd and SaciLloyd

Book Overview

It's the year 2015, and global warming is ravaging the environment. In response, the United Kingdom mandates carbon rationing. When her carbon debit card arrives in the mail, sixteen-year-old Laura is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0823421902
• ISBN13: 9780823421909
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Holiday House
• Length: 330 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 14 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 9 to 12

Customer Reviews

Rock out on the Carbon Diaries

Finally a boook for kids to engage in the environmet with a solid story and a tremendous character. Teachers, this is a book where with endless cross-curriculum possibilites.

A provocative story juxtaposing a girl's aspirations with the demise of environmental systems.

Kids ages 12 and older will relish this edgy story set in near-future London and telling of 2015, and an environment gone crazy. With blackouts, carbon rationing, European fires and a high-category storm headed straight for Britain, the first-person observations of the protagonist in THE CARBON DIARIES 2015 are frighteningly realistic and make for an engrossing story hard to put down. Leisure readers will find it a provocative story juxtaposing a girl's aspirations with the demise of environmental systems.

Rutgers University Project on Economics and Children

Fast forward a few years to the United Kingdom, the first country in the world to respond to the global-warming crisis by setting strict limits on how much energy every person could use. Like everyone else in the UK, Laura Brown and her family members were each given a carbon allowance of 200 Carbon Points per month that they could spend on food, heating, and travel. These ration points came on top of the higher prices people already had to pay once the carbon usage of each commodity had been factored into its cost. Carbon rationing and the resulting abuses of the system and black market sales proved to be just the first of major events related to global warming that would fundamentally change Laura's teenage lifestyle. Incredible drought, extreme cold, riots, immense forest fires, flooding, and the most severe storm in history: just how much more could the country, not to mention the rest of Europe, take? In the midst of these catastrophes, Laura did her best to stay sane, keep her band Dirty Angels together, get the attention of the cute boy next door, and survive the antics of her dysfunctional family. With The Carbon Diaries 2015, Saci Lloyd provides a frightening glimpse of the not-so-distant future in the context of global warming that has gone out of control. The novel makes a valiant attempt at weaving a plot that combines a sophisticated rationing scheme with natural disasters and normal teenage angst. The diary-entry format, informal teenage prose, and images with internet and email printouts should appeal to young adult readers seeking a fast-paced novel with a tech-savvy interface.

Courtesy of Teens Read Too

Laura Brown lives in the U.K. - and unfortunately the U.K. is the first country to establish carbon rationing. Everyone will be expected to reduce their carbon consumption by 60%. Everyone has 200 Carbon Points per month to spend on travel, heat, food, and fun. The 200 Carbon Points are loaded on a card. In order to use anything, you have to swipe your card. If you have enough points - fine. If not, your oven could shut off in the middle of cooking dinner. People have to choose what is really important. As tough as the carbon rationing is, the extreme weather patterns are worse. Unbearable heat, droughts, hurricanes, and floods put normal life on hold for everyone. In addition to adapting to this new life, Laura also has to deal with typical teenage issues. Her family seems to be falling apart, her band is attempting to stay together, and she is trying to get the boy next door to notice her. With the U.K. falling down around her, does Laura have the luxury of being a typical teenager? Saci Lloyd has written an addicting eco-thriller. Following Laura through the toughest year of her life is fascinating. Readers will be anxious to read the follow-up, THE CARBON DIARIES, 2017. Reviewed by: Karin Librarian

Angst-ridden but good

The idea of carbon rationing is not new, carbon credits having been a staple of science fiction for some time now. Climate change / global warming has been a staple of the genre for some time now as well. What Lloyd has done is taken all the fun of those concepts, thrown in a first-person teenage perspective with a healthy dose of angst, and given us a year in the life of young Londoner Laura. Perhaps one of the most enjoyable aspects of the book is not Laura herself (her band, the boy next door, angst, school, the other boy, angst, etc), but her observations about her family, particularly her parents. Unable to withstand the pressures of carbon rationing, they separate and develop new lives. Her mother becomes involved with a somewhat militant women's commune, living in an old warehouse and wearing a tool belt. Her father develops into an urban husbandman, tearing down neighborhood fences to create a common field with his neighbors and taking a job driving a horse-drawn delivery wagon. It is interesting that change comes hardest for the youngest member of the family. "The Carbon Diaries" manages to spin out a solid narrative tale without losing the impact of the diary format, leaving gaps that are just large enough for the reader to fill in, but not so large as to leave the reader behind. The gospel of global warming is not preached, leaving Laura and her family free to simply try to survive. The carbon credit system is a little murky (how can individuals be charged for household consumption?), but this adds to the sense of empathy over the sweeping changes the characters must face. Overall very enjoyable, minus one star for angst.