Rewiew - The Carbon Diaries 2015 by Saci Lloyd

A fantastic and unputdownable book for teenagers!

The story takes place in the near future,  2015.  Due to an increase in severe weather, global warming and pollution the government  decide to  impose carbon rations on the people of Britain. This means that people are allocated a certain amount of carbon dioxide a month (which basically means electricity and fuel). Once people go over that amount they are not allowed any more until the next month. This new lifestyle causes many problems as people are forced to change almost everything about their lives. The story is told by teenager Laura Brown who Chronicles everything in her diary. She is an extremely funny and endearing narrator and her opinions on her family and friend’s reactions to the crisis are fascinating to read. It really makes you think about what life would be like if you HAD to cut down on your energy use . For example, the family in the book are only allowed heating for 3 hours a day and can only watch TV for a very short time. Electricity for washing machines and showers must be carefully rationed. Cars become useless as fuel costs rise and no one can afford to drive them on their rations.

I actually found this book quite scarey. In some ways it is simelar to the excellent “Life as we knew it” by Susan Pfeffer but in other ways it is  much scarier than that book. “Life as we knew it” chronicles a catastrophic but freak disaster from which earth may never recover. “The carbon diaries” chronicles something much closer to home, something that could easily happen and may happen sooner than we think. Setting the diary so close to our own time really makes you think about the impact of  environmental changes on our way of  life. In the book there is a large storm and a huge flood on a scale not usually seen in Britain. The book makes you question whether things like this could happen if we don’t try to do something about global warming.

I really enjoyed reading this book and I am now going to try even harder to be kinder to the environment!