• The Water Will Come

  • Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World
  • By: Jeff Goodell
  • Narrated by: Ian Ferguson
  • Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (722 ratings)

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The Water Will Come  By  cover art

The Water Will Come

By: Jeff Goodell
Narrated by: Ian Ferguson
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Publisher's summary

An eye-opening and essential tour of the vanishing world

What if Atlantis wasn't a myth but an early precursor to a new age of great flooding? Across the globe, scientists and civilians alike are noticing rapidly rising sea levels and higher and higher tides pushing more water directly into the places we live, from our most vibrant, historic cities to our last remaining traditional coastal villages. With each crack in the great ice sheets of the Arctic and Antarctica and each tick upward of Earth's thermometer, we are moving closer to the brink of broad disaster.

By century's end, hundreds of millions of people will be retreating from the world's shores as our coasts become inundated and our landscapes transformed. From island nations to the world's major cities, coastal regions will disappear. Engineering projects to hold back the water are bold and may buy some time. Yet, despite international efforts and tireless research, there is no permanent solution - no barriers to erect or walls to build - that will protect us in the end from the drowning of the world as we know it.

The Water Will Come is the definitive account of the coming water, why and how this will happen, and what it will all mean. As he travels across 12 countries and reports from the front lines, acclaimed journalist Jeff Goodell employs fact, science, and first-person, on-the-ground journalism to show vivid scenes from what already is becoming a water world.

©2017 Jeff Goodell (P)2017 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"In this engaging book, environmental writer Goodell points out that while sea levels have always risen and fallen, the current rise is driven primarily by the dramatically accelerating melting of the arctic ice caps, and with so many cities on seashores, this will be devastating." ( Booklist)
"Jeff Goodell has taken on some of the most important issues of our time, from coal mining to geoengineering. In The Water Will Come, he explains the threat of sea level rise with characteristic rigor and intelligence. The result is at once deeply persuasive and deeply unsettling." (Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author of The Sixth Extinction)

Featured Article: Dive Deep on Our Blue Planet This World Ocean Day


Earth’s oceans and the many ecosystems housed within them are foundational to all life, on sea and land alike. And yet, international waterways face greater threats than ever, imperiled by factors including climate change, pollution and plastic debris, offshore drilling, and destructive fishing practices. We’ve curated a collection of listens to inspire you to learn more and take action to recognize, restore, and protect the sea and all its inhabitants.

What listeners say about The Water Will Come

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    2 out of 5 stars

Well-intentioned but amateurish

While the general premise of this book is correct (sea levels are currently rising due to global warming caused by humans) and the author reaches many reasonable conclusions, at least several of the scientific and mathematical statements given in this book are false. Fossil fuels do NOT come from dinosaur bones (oil formed from plankton and coal formed from Carboniferous organisms), there is NOT a black hole at the edge of our solar system (12 billion miles away - although there is one 12 billion light years away), a budgetary comparison incorrectly states that increasing 2 billion dollars by 1000 times would be 1 trillion dollars (it would be 2 trillion dollars), etc. The only reason I finished the book was because I enjoyed the anecdotes of the author's interviews with experts. But after noticing many glaring quantitative errors I had to take all of his specific facts and figures with a heavy grain of salt.

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28 people found this helpful

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Very interesting

A lot of statistics and reasonable projections are given; when I say 'reasonable', I mean frightening to most people, because in my experience, most people blow off climate change caused by humans. Doesn't anyone read Scientific American or Science Daily any more? Anthropogenic climate change is happening in front of our eyes. But I don't believe that anyone will do anything about it, and as far as I can tell, it's already too late. The tipping point has already been reached, and people aren't going to change. The author pretty much believes that, too. He makes a good case for it, so it's an honest book. The water WILL come, and when it does, all we can do is adapt and/or run. Good book.

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21 people found this helpful

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The coming deluge

Goodell paints a pretty compelling grim picture of what is going to happen to worlds coastlines and and islands over the the coming decades. Disturbing reporting, even more disturbing that nobody seems to give a damn.

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20 people found this helpful

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  • L
  • 01-02-18

Science doesn’t care about beliefs

This book will help you understand what rising seas will actually look like. And it was written BEFORE the 2017 hurricane season.

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19 people found this helpful

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Engaging book, well told

This book actually filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge about Global warming. Easy listen, artfully written.

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13 people found this helpful

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Thought provoking

Gloomy but very well researched and written. I especially enjoyed the summaries of sea-level structures built (or being designed) across the world.

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12 people found this helpful

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A must hear.

I thought I knew enough about the serious issues facing our planet at least as far as climate change goes and sea level rise. This book is interesting well researched and very informative. I highly recommend it.

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12 people found this helpful

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What Global Warming Will Do

There is a lot of terribly important information here. Goodell is very convincing that the world is in big trouble. The book rambles slightly, and the reader mispronounces several names. But it's very much worth listening to.

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11 people found this helpful

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dog whistles

boring, snoozefest of no solutions just dog whistels and names of cities on the coast

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7 people found this helpful

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Enlightening for future evolution and action

Opened up my mind about future living. it was a book full of Truth... rather than what we mostly here and the times we're living through. It'll take all of us talking this up.

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5 people found this helpful