Laura Brown relates her journal of her year in 2015. UK goes on carbon rationing, limits energy usage by citizens. Results in widespread power cuts, loss of water, heating etc. which throws country into chaos. Protests for/against rationing worldwide, police/army violence often resorted to.

Laura is in a band called the dirty angels, who sing about green punky stuff. Her sister, Kim, is trafficking black market carbon, as well as angry at parents. Dad loses job and goes crazy with gardening, Mum joins Women Moving Forward and becomes slightly mad. She herself is trying to get with neighbour Ravi Datta. Other neighbours are Kieran, gay hairdresser trying to launch Carbon Dating, and Arthur, old ex-rich guy who helps with homework etc.

She is generally negative towards politicans etc. Blames companies for waste, forcing people on rationing - in music. Hates the new living conditions, but also hates those who won't put up with it (rich). Eventually ends up living through the disputes of their parents at wolf camp in the forest, before coming back to have a end-book crisis involving London flooding and NDEs.

Shows the impact of carbon reduction as incredibly bad, but suggests slower reforms are possible. ( )

teen fiction; global warming-->carbon rationing/teen angst. Laura is a Londoner and writes as such. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but she's also not very interesting. Her friends aren't interesting, her family isn't interesting, even her crush Ravi is not that interesting. I imagine if I'd gotten past the first 50 pages I might have found something to care about, but I just didn't want to bother finishing this one. ( )

The Guardian had an article about the 5 greatest books about climate change and this one was the only one I had not read. So I reserved it from the library and dug into it the past few days. While perhaps not as good as some of the other books on the list such The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood it was pretty decent.

Written in 2009 it postulates that by 2015 there would be catastrophic climate occurrences and that Great Britain would impose carbon rationing on all its populace. Laura Brown in 16 years old when the carbon rationing takes place and she starts her diary on January 1. Each citizen is given a carbon card for the year and if they use up all their carbon allowance before the end of the year they will have no electricity or food or transportation until the next year. Laura isn't a big consumer as she rides her bike or takes public transport to go to school but she misses things like fruit from the tropics and being able to download music whenever she wants. She is probably the one in her family most able to cope as her older sister, Kim, wanted to spend her gap year in New York, her mother can't figure out how to take the bus and really misses her car and her father loses his job teaching travel and tourism because no-one is going anywhere. The weather is brutal--too cold in winter and too hot and dry in summer and a devastating storm surge in the fall. Through it all Laura is trying to be a normal teenager who plays in a punk rock band and falls in love with the gorgeous boy next door.

Reading this in 2017 one can be thankful that the global climate isn't as bad as what Ms Lloyd postulates but, on the other hand, there is no evidence that people have realized how bad our energy hogging lifestyle is. Even the US President denies that climate change exists but every year examples of out of control weather patterns keep coming. Eastern Canada has just been inundated by flood waters, the Horn of Africa has experienced drought and famine for years and tornadoes and hurricanes occur earlier every year. ( )

Interesting concept, but having a really hard time with the immaturity of the narrator and thus the lack of real information about the environment and society. Can we say clueless any louder? p. 44

Interesting take, like the English viewpoint. Wish Adi had his own story (Laura is a bit whiny). ( )