Falling Up: How to get to Proxima Centauri

In the middle of the 21st century on Terra, the asymmetrical shifting of the ice on Antarctica produces a centrifugal force. In the space of a few days the crust shifts over the mantle and the US and Europe suddenly find themselves heading for the north pole. Ice sheets one mile high form over Europe & America wiping clean the land and most forms of life. Somewhat puzzled by all this, but ready to move into the new lands are the Inuit, but billions of others starve, and the advanced nations are forced to invade the thin band of life remaining around the equator to preserve their cultures. It seems that humanity has lost any hope of colonising deep-space: the mining colonies around Saturn are too weak and the Earth government, fearful of losing control, has banned research into anti-gravity & interstellar travel. Somewhere in this chaos is Dork, a scientist who dreams of building a quantum launch system, but in the circumstances he has to make a living by suppressing work like his own. He finds love, and the courage to follow his dreams, when an off-worlder, Maati, is captured and brought to Terra, but that is just the beginning of their problems..