Weekend Reading, Watching and Listening Recommendations (December 17, 2021)

A Man Who Predicted Climate Change.; A 40-Year-Old Battery Problem Solved? ; China’s Big New Idea; This Year's Excellent Economics Nobel Lectures

1. Read: A Man Who Predicted Climate Change. In the nineteen-sixties, Syukuro Manabe drew a graph that foretold our world today—and what’s to come. [via the New Yorker]

2. Read: Did QuantumScape Just Solve a 40-Year-Old Battery Problem? Earlier this year, the startup claimed to have a revolutionary solid-state lithium-ion cell that could change EVs forever. Now it has data to prove it. [via Wired]

3. Read: China’s Big New Idea. Why Xi Jinping won’t stop talking about “common prosperity” [via The Atlantic]

4. Listen: TikTok in 2020: Super App or Supernova? By May 2020, TikTok operated in 155 countries and, together with Douyin (its China app), it had roughly one billion monthly active users, placing it in the top ranks of digital platforms globally. [via Harvard Business Review]

5. Watch: The online Nobel prize lectures this year were all excellent but yhe Economics prize winners were especially good.