The GPSO Global Population Speak Out is a special project of the international non-profit organization

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 and non-governmental organization

Non-governmental organization

A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...

 Population Institute. Originally founded by John Feeney

John Feeney

John Feeney was a New Zealand-born director of documentary films. He worked with the New Zealand National Film Unit, National Film Board of Canada and made films and did photography in Egypt. He was nominated for two Academy Awards.-Early life:Feeney was born in Ngaruawahia and attended at...

, PhD, an ecological writer and activist based in Boulder Colorado, USA, the GPSO project is designed specifically to increase public discussion of human population as a fundamental variable in the human struggle to achieve a sustainable living scenario with our planet.

The project has a basic structure. A letter of inquiry, explaining the project's mission receives the endorsement of a specially selected group of high profile scientists, activists and celebrities. Over the years, endorsers have included famous scientists such as Paul R. Ehrlich

Paul R. Ehrlich

Paul Ralph Ehrlich is an American biologist and educator who is the Bing Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University and president of Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology. By training he is an entomologist specializing in Lepidoptera , but...

, Bing Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

, and Dennis Meadows

Dennis Meadows

Dennis L. Meadows is an American scientist and Emeritus Professor of Systems Management, and former director of the Institute for Policy and Social Science Research at the University of New Hampshire...

, Professor Emeritus of Systems Policy and Social Science Research, University of New Hampshire

University of New Hampshire

The University of New Hampshire is a public university in the University System of New Hampshire , United States. The main campus is in Durham, New Hampshire. An additional campus is located in Manchester. With over 15,000 students, UNH is the largest university in New Hampshire. The university is...

.

This letter is then distributed to individuals thought likely to have an interest in human population dynamics. The recipients are asked to make a personal pledge to publicly speak out at some point during the month of February on the size and growth of human population. Scientists, representatives of environmental NGO’s, science writers and activists, along with ordinary concerned citizens constitute the community of pledgers.

Pledgers also commit to reporting their project activities back to the Global Population Speak Out coordinator. These reports are then listed on the GPSO website.

Background

Dr. Feeney conceived of the GPSO idea in 2008 and organized and managed the first Global Population Speak Out in February 2009. He subsequently arranged for the GPSO franchise, and future GPSO activities, to be managed by the Population Institute, Washington DC.

GPSO 2011

GPSO 2011 maintained the number of project endorsers at 50. There were 24 women and 26 men, who represented 16 nations, including: Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, Bangladesh

Bangladesh

Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

, Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

, Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Kenya

Kenya

Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

, Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

, Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

, Uganda

Uganda

Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...

, UK, and the USA. The number of Pledgers increased from 386 in 2010 to 1,037 in 2011. Overall, GPSO 2011 achieved participation from individuals from 52 countries.

GPSO 2010

GPSO 2010 increased the number of project endorsers from 32 (in 2009) to 50 in 2010 (including 28 Ph.D's). Under Population Institute's project management, the number of pledgers had also increased from 216 in 2009 to 386.

GPSO 2009

After the letter had been signed by 32 persons, GPSO started as a project in the World Wide Web on September 2008. In October the magazine “Science”

Science (journal)

Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....

 wrote:

"At a time when some developed nations are paying citizens to bolster flagging birth-rates (Science, 30 June 2006, p. 1894), a grass-roots group of scientists and environmentalists is calling for a new push to limit human numbers".

GPSO is being supported by the World Union for Protection of Life

World Union for Protection of Life

The World Union for Protection of Life is an international non-profit organization and non-governmental organization which was founded 1958 in Salzburg by the writer Günther Schwab...

 (WUPL), which was founded in Luxembourg 1964.

GPSO 2009 received pledges from 216 persons in at least 17 countries. Among them was John Guillebaud

John Guillebaud

Professor John Guillebaud is Emeritus Professor of Family Planning and Reproductive Health at University College London. He was born in Burundi and brought up in Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, and Britain....

, Emeritus Professor of Family Planning & Reproductive Health, University College London

University College London

University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

, and former Co-chair of OPT

Optimum Population Trust

Population Matters, formerly known as the Optimum Population Trust, is a registered United Kingdom charity, think tank, and campaign group concerned with the impact of population growth on long term sustainability, quality of life and the natural environment, specifically natural resources, climate...

. In November 2009 the Population Institute (PI), established since 1969 in Washington D.C., declared its cooperation with GPSO.

In 2009, the Global Population Speak Out was covered in Science Magazine

Science Magazine

Science Magazine was a half-hour television show produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from 1975 to 1979.The show was hosted by geneticist David Suzuki, who previously hosted the daytime youth programme Suzuki On Science...

, The Christian Science Monitor

The Christian Science Monitor

The Christian Science Monitor is an international newspaper published daily online, Monday to Friday, and weekly in print. It was started in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. As of 2009, the print circulation was 67,703.The CSM is a newspaper that covers...

 and The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

Online, among others.

External links

• http://www.populationspeakout.org
• http://twitter.com/gpso2011
• http://www.populationinstitute.org/programs/gpso/