Kansas City, 2065

Sometimes, I worry about climate change, and fear we have come to the point of no return. I deal with this in a distinctly Buddhist way, telling myself it is what it is, as I have limited control over climate.

However, that doesn't mean I cannot change the future in my books:

Berkeley, a time traveler hiding in the parched Chaos of Kansas City 2065, sends his protege Ian Akimoto back to 2015, purportedly to protect Berkeley's former protege, Kat Pleskovich. Kat, the top daredevil in the game Voyager, doesn't trust this enigma from the future, but when he warns her during a sabotaged Voyageurs stunt called "jumping time", Ian gives her the chance she needs to survive. After several attempts on their lives, Kat and Ian, with the help of Berkeley, deduce that Harold Martin and Wanda Smith,  Kat's friends, are behind the attempted murders. With the help of Berkeley and Kat's estranged mother, Agnes Faa Pleskovich, they discover that the archived notes of the Voyageur's files reveal a pattern among the daredevil deaths. Then, when Berkeley sets them to deciphering Time Physics, a tome that Ian's deceased parents wrote, Kat and Ian discover a plot that runs from 1930's Kansas City to the environmental devastation of 2065, and a possible way to reverse it ...

Yes, this is a magic solution to climate change -- find its historical roots and keep it from happening. But the story allowed me to explore a ten-year drought and its effects -- monocultures of adaptive but noxious giant hogweed in empty lots; bombed and burned-out buildings from civic unrest; lawlessness and evidence that the rich hole themselves away in bunkers hoarding water. It also gave me the opportunity to create consistent rules for time jumping and changing the future and develop underground subcultures for the Travellers (in this case time travelers) and Voyageurs (daredevil time travelers).

If only the reality was this easy to fix.