Wait, I didn't agree to that.

From where I sit, it looks like Malthus could have been right. We could be living in a hellish equilibrium with famine because the Earth can't provide enough cropland to feed everyone, or enough firewood to keep us warm.

Our escape from Malthus is because of the human mind. Some really smart people invented irrigation, terracing, crop rotation, selective breeding and genetic engineering, to improve the efficiency of agriculture by orders of magnitude. Likewise, we've found alternative fuels, from wood to wax to whale blubber to fossil fuels to nukes (and hopefully still inventing!).

But we've taken all that low-hanging fruit, so we need greater reservoirs of creativity and engineering. Adding more smarts is how we continue to keep ahead of Malthus.