President’s Note, December 2025
Written by John Seager, President and CEO | Published: December 8, 2025
“Development and distribution of educational materials [about the momentum of population growth] we would place very high on ZPG’s list of priorities — and efforts to introduce the concept of demographic momentum into school curricula are particularly important.”
– Paul and Anne Ehrlich, 1978
Nearly a half-century after Paul and Anne Ehrlich’s strong recommendation, Population Connection’s Population Education program is the only nationwide one of its kind. Actively used by teachers in thousands of K–12 classrooms across Northern America, our materials are carefully researched, rigorously secular, and custom-designed to meet the needs of educators at all levels.
We train over 10,000 teachers annually and provide curriculum materials that encourage students at every grade level to think for themselves as they make connections between population challenges and everything from the environment to the economy to the complexities of society itself. Slogans and tweets can’t and won’t provide the pathway to a better, safer, less-crowded future. Education can and will.
Writing just 10 years after our founding in 1968, Paul and Anne Ehrlich pronounced that “ZPG members must realize that they are in for a long battle […] But the game will be worth the candle.” Of course, the Ehrlichs were and are scientists, not soothsayers. But their words have proven prophetic.
Quotes by Paul and Anne Ehrlich from “ZPG: Where to Now?” ZPG National Reporter, Vol. 10, No. 4 (1978).
In memoriam: Duff Gillespie, 1942–2025
Duff was a friend and mentor. During many years as a dues-paying member and as a board member of Population Connection, he unfailingly provided excellent counsel derived from his six decades of experience dealing with the most complex population issues. Over the course of 30 years at USAID, Duff served as Director of the Office of Population and helped create its Global Health Bureau. He then went on to an equally distinguished career as a Professor in the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health. Duff always cut to the chase with clarity and good humor. I am just one of countless millions around the world who benefited from his life’s work.