There are too many people. The global population is rising, and many fear that resources can’t keep up.

At least that’s what many believe.

The global population grew slowly and steadily for hundreds of years. During the Industrial Revolution, in the early 1800s, the earth hit a milestone of one billion people. Over the next 200 years it skyrocketed to nearly eight billion.

However, growth is actually slowing. There are many reasons for this, the simplest is that people are having fewer children. The days of five or six siblings are a thing of the past. In many cases, people are simply choosing not to have kids — for a multitude of reasons.

Regardless, growth is slowing. In some places, such as South Korea and Japan, some experts are sounding the alarm.

So, if the population isn’t growing, why are we concerned about resources?

Because we’re focused on the wrong growth.

It isn’t the population as a whole we should be focusing on. Rather, it’s the rise in the middle class. Specifically the growing economy of developing countries and the spending power of huge numbers of people once living near poverty.

Places like India, Guyana, the Phillippines, Macao, and swaths of countries throughout Africa. Their growing middle class wants the same things as the middle class in any other country. And this comes with a higher demand for limited global resources.

So is this a bad thing? I’m no economist, but I understand supply and demand. The resource issue is a concern. But there’s more than one way to look at this.

In the past two decades, millions — even billions — of lives have improved significantly. Extreme poverty is crashing on a global scale.

Things are getting better.

And as far as resources are concerned, with this rise from poverty, we’re also increasing the supply of engineers, scientists, geneticists and innovators. Many of them are seeking to solve tough challenges exactly like the resources issue.

Long rant short, this is a good thing. I’m optimistic.

The world is getting better and humanity is getting smarter as a whole. And while there will always be problems, solving them will only get easier.