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- Aliens on the Moon, Bill Gates’ Climate Change, Peak Oil, and Quantum Darwinism
Aliens on the Moon, Bill Gates’ Climate Change, Peak Oil, and Quantum Darwinism
This week’s science bits from SWTG
Marcus Gee-Lim
November 19, 2025
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Search for Alien Visitors on the Moon, Physicist Says
In a new preprint, the astrophysicist Alex Ellery argues that, if extraterrestrials sent probes to our solar system to check us out, they would likely use (or have used) the moon as a base. This makes a lot of sense in that the moon is close to us, offers resources to repair, maintain, or recharge the probes, and has enough opportunity to still hide from us. Going by that logic, he suggests that we take particularly close looks at areas of the moon that are difficult to observe from Earth or on fly-by. Paper here.
This week’s episode of Science News is about Quantum Darwinism. We don’t see the effects of quantum physics outside the submicroscopic scale. That’s why your lunchbox can’t be in two places at once and cats aren’t dead and alive at the same time. But why, exactly, is this true? According to physicists who’ve recently published a paper on that question, the theory of Quantum Darwinism can answer it. Let’s take a look.
Bill Gates Offends Climate Activists By Being Reasonable
Bill Gates recently published a long essay about his views on climate change action, arguing that for many people in the world, disease and poverty is the more urgent problem. He writes that:
“Unfortunately, the doomsday outlook is causing much of the climate community to focus too much on near-term emissions goals, and it’s diverting resources from the most effective things we should be doing to improve life in a warming world.”
US President Donald Trump applauded Gates’ supposed change of mind by commenting:
“I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue.”
Climate activists complained of a “false dichotomy,” saying that we need to fight poverty as well as climate change.
Personally, I don’t see much of a shift in Gates’ thinking; he has always been on the pragmatic side. Gates is right, of course, that we do not have infinite resources and we must decide what matters most.
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Peak Oil Has Been Postponed Again
A new projection of the International Energy Agency (IEA) under their current policies scenario (CPS) foresees that demand for oil will continue to increase through 2050, driven by developing economies. If countries held on to their stated policies, the IEA says oil demand should peak in 2030. Full report here.
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