I regret to inform you that, much as I love him, today Bill Nye (the science guy) finds himself on the Wall of Shame here at Growth Bias Busted.

I have a real problem with population growth maintaining its undeserved place on the mantle of trophies for city success. Cities don’t grow their population in an alternative universe. They grow in the same overpopulated world of 7.4 billion currently killing our planet.

It’s a bit challenging to decide whether Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe belongs on the Wall of Shame or the Wall of Fame this week. His recent comments accepting Japan’s shrinking population – in the end – are dramatic enough that they outweigh his obvious worship of economic growth.

My mother recently brought to my attention a smart comment by Parade magazine columnist Marilyn vos Savant. She was asked by John Stroot of Camarillo, California, “In a thousand years, people will look back on our society and say whether we were a success or not. If you were one of those people, what do you think you might say?”

I’m delighted to relaunch Growth Bias Busted with a nod to exemplary thought and writing about the important role of population reduction in decreasing carbon emissions. Alisha Graves offers real gems in Family Planning: The Quick Carbon Payoff.

This piece in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is part of a series of commentaries debating the link between emissions and population. You might find the entire series of interest.