Pledges are now closed. Thanks to all who pledged and followed through with efforts. GPSO was your actions!
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Click here to see pledgers’ efforts!
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Welcome to the website for the Global Population Speak Out (GPSO). GPSO is a simple idea in response to our worldwide ecological plight.
The size and growth of the human population is a fundamental driver of the crisis we face. If we hope to avert worldwide catastrophe, many experts agree, we’ll need a massive shift of attention and resources toward humane measures designed to stabilize and ultimately reduce world population to a sustainable level.
Yet there exists today a taboo of sorts against public discussion of overpopulation. Outside the scientific community, calls to address overpopulation often meet vigorous, ill-informed criticism and even hostility from both the left and right. [1] Understandably, few in a position to speak out on the population topic care to do so under such conditions.
Change does not spring from silence. Clearly we must find a way to break down this taboo and bring the population issue to the center of public discussion.
That’s where GPSO comes in.
The GPSO idea
GPSO was born of a simple idea: What if a large number of qualified voices worldwide, many of whom might not have emphasized the topic previously, were to speak out on overpopulation all at once? The strength of numbers might help weaken the taboo and bring population issues to a more prominent position in the global discussion.
How it works
GPSO begins with an invitation (the GPSO letter) we’re sending to a large number of scientists and scholars, environmental, science, and social policy writers, editors, and activists, staff members of environmental NGOs, politicians, and a variety of prominent public figures. As a group of concerned scientists and environmental writers and activists, we invite them merely to pledge to speak out in some way, during February, 2009, on the problem of the size and growth of the human population.
But you need not be invited to pledge. We welcome unsolicited pledges. See this page for details.
Importantly, participants can be sure they will have plenty of good company in their efforts. Only if we get at least 50 commitments will we ask respondents to honor their pledges. (We anticipate more.) If we do, then GPSO happens; a minimum of 50, and perhaps many more respected voices worldwide will speak out publicly on the population issue during a single month.
Many of the invited participants will be speaking publicly on the topic for the first time. Our strongest hope is to bring new voices to the issue, to break down the barrier for others to follow. If GPSO is highly successful, it will be a little easier after February for more people to take up this crucial cause.
This site
Here on the website, you’ll find information on the project, a copy of the GPSO letter to potential participants, a list of the letter’s signers, a record of participants (pledgers) and their efforts to speak out, a blog for updates, and materials helpful to participants in formulating their messages or to others seeking basic information on the global ecological crisis and its link to the size and growth of the human population.
Thanks for stopping by, and please check back for updates in the near future.
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1. One of the historical roots of the taboo involves understandable concern about some past human rights abuses carried out in the name of “population control.” (There were reports in the mid-1970s, for example, of forced sterilizations in some states in India.)
Many of the roots, however, reflect disingenuous, sometimes politically motivated distortions leading, for example, to denials of the population-environment link. In all cases the result has been a deliberate suppression of discussion of this crucial environmental issue. We urge instead open, intellectually honest discussion, repudiating abuses and asserting our respect for human rights. We note that nowhere are human rights more a concern than in the effort to avert the cataclysm for humanity portended by signs of global ecological collapse.
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GPSO is organized by John Feeney, with endorsement and help from the signers of the GPSO letter.
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Header photo: David Sim, flickr.com, Creative Commons license
