Is rapid world population growth actually coming to an end? As population growth and its consequences have become front-page issues, projections of slowing growth from such institutions as the United Nations and the World Bank have been called into question. In this book the NRC asks what such projections really say, why they say it, and whether they can be trusted and/or improved. The book includes analysis of how well past U.N. and World Bank projections have panned out, what errors have occurred, and why they have happened. Focusing on fertility as one key to accurate projections, the committee examines the transition from high, constant fertility to low fertility levels and discusses whether developing countries will eventually attain the very low levels of births now observed in the industrialized world. Other keys to accurate projections, predictions of lengthening life span and of the impact of international migration on specific countries, are also explored in detail.

This is a book from the National Research Council (NRC) arm of the National Academy of Sciences that discusses the impact that growing human population is having on the Earth's biosphere and what can be done in coming decades to avoid environmental crises as a result.