By Ruth Leubecker

Long recognized for his outrageous predictions, Jeff Goodell’s latest -- The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities and the Remaking of the Civilized World -- is unsettling at best, terrifying at worst.

The author and contributing editor to Rolling Stone has habitually fixated on how to cool the planet, big coal, cities overtaken by the elements and human apathy. But it’s the facts that cause one to increasingly ponder his subject matter.