World Population: Past, Present & Future

by Julio A. Gonzalo, Manuel Alfonseca, Félix-Fernando Muñoz

World Population: Past, Present, & Future uses a multidisciplinary approach to investigate in depth on important aspects of the evolution of world population not well addressed previously. The authors from the Universidad Autonoma, Madrid (Spain), professors Julio A Gonzalo, Manuel Alfonseca, and Félix-Fernando Muñoz, point out that the recent pronounced growth in world population (accompanied by an even more pronounced growth in agricultural production) was due mainly to the increase of life expectancy and not to the (inexistent) growth in fertility rate. Using a "rate equations" approach for the first time, they describe population trends and forecast the possibility of steps up (or down) in population rather than the exponential growth predicted by UN demographers around 1985 and thereafter. This book provides a new perspective that our planet is not overpopulated and could, in fact, house a considerably larger population.

Contents: Foreword Contents Population, the Economy, and the Environment: Introductory Considerations The Earth as a Privileged Planet Mathematical Descriptions of Population Trends World Population Growth: 1900–2010: The UN Data World Economic Expansion: 1945–1990 Energy, Population and the Environment Is the Earth Overpopulated?: Abortion and Population Control Government Family Planning Now and in the Future The Rhetoric of Population Control: Does the End Justify the Means? Rate Equations Approach and the Future of World Population: Using a Rate Equations Approach to Model World Population Trends Prospects of World Population Slow Down Falling Birth Rates and World Population Projections: A Quantitative Discussion (1950–2050) Quantitative Estimates of the Future World Population Decline Malthus's Mistake
Readership: Undergraduates and graduates interested in demography and those who are keen to examine demographic trends, population theories and policy interventions.

174 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 9, 2016

About the author

Professor of Materials Physics at the Universidad Autónoma (Madrid)( 1978-2006).

At present he is research collaborator at UAM, and Professor Emeritus at the EPS- U. San Pablo CEU, Madrid. He worked as Senior Scientist in the PRNC (1962-1975) and as research collaborator in Brookhaven National Laboratory (1964-65).

Previously or simultaneously he was teacher or professor at the universities of Salamanca(1959-62), UPR Mayaguez(1962-75), UPR Río Piedras (1975-76),Puerto Rico, and Barcelona (1976-77).

President Asociacion Espanola Ciencia y Cultura:

Author of books on Phase Transitions, Solid State Spectroscopies, Ferroelectricity, Cosmology, Philosophy and History of Science, and on various other subjects like "Cursillos in Christianity,, " of which there are versions in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Korean.

He was elected member of the Advisory European (1979- ) and International(1981- ) Commitees on Ferroelectricity and Member of the advisory board of the international Journals "Ferroelectrics" and "Phase Transitions."

In 2003 he received the "Cruz de Alfonso X el Sabio", Encomienda de Caballero.

In 2006 he was made Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of the Basque Country, Bilbao (Spain)

He has been privileged to collaborate/publish with four Noble Prize Physics winners: K.A.Müller(Zurich), V.Ginzburg (Moscow) ,J.C.Mather (NASA) and G.F.Smoot (Berkeley).