Pode ser O-Zone por Paul Theroux, de 1986.
Já faz um tempo desde que eu li, e não me lembro de um ângulo para salvar o mundo, mas o resto se encaixa.
De esta revisão :
It is an America of Us and Them.
(...) a powerful technocrat named Hardy. Hardy builds huge asphalt mountains in remote areas. Ostensibly, through a heat convection process, they serve to make rain.
Outside the enclaves is wilderness. Impoverished bands of Aliens roam throughout; some of whom are predatory and violent, while others simply scavenge and hunt. (...) A great part of the Southeast, around the Ozarks, has been contaminated by massive leaks from nuclear waste dumps. The O-Zone is sealed off (...)