When paleoclimatologist Emma Phelps heads to Washington, D.C. — which some consider a hostile place for scientists — the stakes are higher than ever. She arrives on a mission to challenge some troubling shifts in environmental policy but finds herself at an intersection of the personal and political, which raises difficult questions around sex, power and doing things for profit versus public good. As she fights for change and searches for answers, Emma realizes she must thaw from her own anguish before she can save the planet and herself.