Newsflash: Americans are a bit pessimistic when it comes to the economy. And jobs. And, well, politicians.

TV, radio, and other media reinforce this pessimism with daily headlines about war, poverty, global warming, crime, and more.

There's at least one voice in the wilderness, though, that wants us to lay off the doom and gloom.
 
"The world as a whole has never been in better shape,” says Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (P.S.)

But if things are getting better, what’s the cause of Americans’ pessimism?
 
When it comes to prosperity, the world is still finding its equilibrium, Ridley argues. The situation is improving enormously for people in the poorest countries, while wealthy nations aren’t seeing the same kind of advancement. “Since 2007, Italy’s GDP per capita has shrunk by 6 percent. Mozambique’s has increased by 60 percent in that time.”

Many of us have heard the narrative of explosive growth in developing countries, of course — and it leads us to even more negative conclusions: that the rise of poorer countries could put more pressure on resources, as people in those countries demand access to clean water, better health, and more consumer goods.

But, argues Ridley, “we’re getting more ingenious in how we manufacture them or mine [products]. For example, in the case of steel, we’re recycling so much more of it that the demand for raw iron ore has, if anything, gone down a bit.”
 
Ridley points out that the amount of land needed for food production has also decreased over time — in large part thanks to GMOs (another big fear factor for many).
 
"We’ve been genetically modifying food for 10,000 years. I mean, what is wheat? It’s a genetically modified grass,” says Ridley.
 
It may be time to see the silver lining, instead of the clouds.