By the year 2045 runaway climate change is overtaking the world, and the generation that has inherited this disaster has turned on those that were given warnings half a century earlier but ignored them.

All Tippers, people born before the year 2000, must stand trial for climate crimes such as squander, display and neglect, and they face the death penalty if found guilty. Nobody sent to Audit Camp 71 has ever been pardoned, but the elderly weather scientist Jason Hall has volunteered to go there. He wants to prove that some Tippers are genuinely innocent.

Jason's trial is given priority, and every day for a fortnight he will be brought before the Auditor General and the Retributor. His main challenge is likely to be the famously pitiless Auditor General, who is also his granddaughter.