Donal De Burca

An Offaly man with an interest in engineering, science and travel.

[Toby Young @toadmeister]

Britain is heading towards blackouts because of its overreliance on renewables, says energy expert Richard Lyon, who explains how Britain's power grid works and why Net Zero is making it vulnerable to severe outages. https://t.co/n2PcUNiJRG

[Donal De Burca @donal_de_burca]

Glendalough – Spinc and Glenealo Valley Walk

[Bjorn Lomborg @BjornLomborg]

Compelling:

The West’s net-zero policies are handing China a huge strategic advantage

While Western nations close reliable energy and raise costs, China adds wind and solar without giving up coal, oil or gas—then sells us the panels, batteries and other products our mandates require

China’s approach is “add, don’t subtract”: build renewables and nuclear power while continuing to expand fossil fuels. This supplies cheap, dependable energy for Chinese industry. Meanwhile, many Western governments deliberately make their own energy more expensive and become increasingly dependent on Chinese solar panels, batteries, critical minerals and manufacturing.

Western climate organizations scrutinize democracies far more aggressively than China, where independent activism is impossible and access depends on the state.

Climate policy should be judged by its actual effect on global emissions, energy prices, industrial competitiveness and dependence on China—not simply by whether it appears ambitious at home.

https://t.co/2gpXeNvrT9

[TRIGGERnometry @triggerpod]

Can renewables fully replace denser forms of energy?

Geologist Scott Tinker breaks down why energy density matters and how renewables fit into a diversified global energy portfolio, but why they won’t replace energy-dense fuels.

[Aaron Siri @AaronSiriSG]

Four mistakes Fauci made when pleading the 5th today:

1. Once a witness opens the door to a topic, the witness cannot then plead the 5th with regard to that topic. And Fauci’s opening statement opened many doors widely, including when he claimed he had a “decades-long record of cooperating with Congress” including “during and after the Covid pandemic” when he “appeared multiple times for hearings in the Senate and the House.” That puts the question of whether he properly cooperated when responding to questions, including prior questions from Senator Paul, in all of those hearings directly at issue. Here are a few of his statements through which he opened the door broadly:

•“I served at the NIH for over 54 years, 38 of those as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.”
•“Over that period, I proved that I believe in and respect the value of legitimate congressional oversight. In fact, I testified before and/or briefed Senate and House committees well over 200 times over those 38 years.”
•“During and after the Covid pandemic, I have appeared multiple times for hearings in the Senate and the House, usually under oath, and sat for several days-long, transcribed sworn interviews answering questions about the very issues that are now the subject of this hearing.”
•“However, Given Senator Paul’s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently, his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary, aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something – anything – that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars.’ Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion.”
•“Therefore, although it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress, under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the 5th amendment of the constitution to refrain from answering your questions.”

2. The 5th amendment can only be used when answering a question which would present real and appreciable danger. Thus, his use of the 5th during the hearing for questions that clearly don’t meet this standard, including about the color of his tie and what day of the week it is, reflects on its improper use during the hearing overall.

3. Since invoking the 5th is question specific, announcing before even hearing the questions that he would “refrain from answering [the committee’s] questions” under the 5th was itself improper.

4. Finally, ignoring the broad presidential pardon he received, as if it doesn’t exist, including for questions that would clearly fall within the parameters of that incredibly broad pardon, was a misstep that may come back to bite him later.
@SenRandPaul @SenRonJohnson @HawleyMO @berniemoreno @SenatorLankford

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

From @WSJFreeEx via @WSJOpinion: The Fauci diaries do more than flesh out the psychological profile of the man who became the face of elite overreaction to the pandemic. They also provide evidence of deliberate deception, writes @jackbutler4815.
https://t.co/IOKV5uCkhQ

[Aaron Siri @AaronSiriSG]

While you wait for Fauci’s hearing to start, a reminder that when the U.S. government purchased Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, it contractually agreed to keep the PREP Act immunity in place for as long as their vaccines are administered in the United States.

What that means is that the U.S. government promised Pfizer and Moderna that it could not be sued for harms from its Covid-19 vaccines, irrespective of whether an emergency continued to exist.

But not only did our government contractually agree that Pfizer and Moderna can harm and kill Americans with impunity, it also guaranteed Pfizer and Moderna billions of dollars for this privilege.

Even worse, the U.S. government guaranteed this immunity in July 2020, months before it first authorized Covid-19 vaccines in December 2020. Meaning, the U.S. government pre-guaranteed these companies immunity from any harm caused by their products, thus, knowingly undermining any incentive for them to create a safe product.

And how much were Pfizer and Moderna guaranteed to be paid by the U.S. government to develop a product that could harm its own citizens with impunity? A total of over $21 billion just in the initial rollout -- $8.63 billion for Moderna and $13.15 billion for Pfizer.

Sound unreal? See the actual contracts for yourself linked in my most recent restack.

The Fallout

The implications are incredible.

To start, Pfizer and Moderna could sue the U.S. government for breach of contract and potentially other relief if PREP Act immunity is terminated before the United States’ use of their COVID-19 vaccines ceases.

Only in an upside-down world would the U.S. government siphon over $21 billion of its citizen’s taxpayer dollars to Pfizer and Moderna and pre-guarantee a profit-motivated company sweeping immunity for harms its product causes to its own citizens.

Summing it up:

The U.S. government guaranteed Pfizer and Moderna immunity for injuries from their products before they were even developed, thereby eliminating the incentive for these companies to make their product safe. Worse, it gave these companies billions of dollars of its citizens’ money to develop these products, and even more incredible, it then spent billions more of its citizen’s money to promote Pfizer’s product as “safe and effective.” And in an ultimate slap to its citizens, then it required them to be injected with this product under the threat of grave consequences, including expulsion from school, losing their job, discharge from the military, etc.

Who is Being Protected?

Who exactly is the U.S. government working for? Whose interests is it protecting?

Government agencies have a well-documented history of being captured by industry. It is known in political science as regulatory capture. In this case, the capture is by pharma and the degree of capture is unprecedented.

You, the collective citizens of the United States, have paid Pfizer and Moderna billions of dollars. You have paid with your taxes. You have paid with your bodies when you were injured without recourse against Pfizer or Moderna. You have paid with your right to freedom when you were forced to be injected with their products under penalty of losing basic civil rights, employment, or more.

And what have Pfizer and Moderna paid? Nothing. They instead raked in billions of dollars of your money as long as they developed a Covid-19 vaccine and were shielded from liability irrespective of how unsafe of a product they developed or how much harm it would cause the public that paid them.

The Solution

The above again brings into focus why no medical product should ever be mandated. This assures you can say “no” if you don’t want a product developed with pre-guaranteed immunity for harms. “No” where its clinical trial had more deaths in the vaccinated group than the placebo group. “No” where it generates over $55 billion in revenue but its morally-bankrupt manufacturers won’t spend a dollar to compensate those injured.

Even if you support all current vaccines, masks, etc., there may come a day when you may not want to take a mandated medical product or procedure. When that day comes, it may be too late to recapture the rights you have surrendered. Rights lost are rarely retrieved. This is why, while everyone should be free to take any medical product, everyone should also be free to decline any medical product without penalty.

It should be that simple.

Take Action

To that end, I encourage you to send the following proposed legislation to your legislative representatives:

“No law may require or coerce a person to receive or use a medical product, or impose a penalty or deprive a benefit for refusing a medical product or refusing to disclose whether a person has received a medical product.”

Medical freedom is freedom. If you cannot get a job, go to school, play sports, sit in a restaurant, or otherwise participate in civil society because you refuse a medical product, then what good are your rights if you can exercise them only at home by yourself? That is why medical freedom is a fundamental right that must be permanently fixed into the law of every civilized nation.

Thank you to all the warriors, veteran and new, who join arms in the battle to secure this fundamental right. As aptly stated in the Declaration of Independence, we “are endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights” and to safeguard those rights “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” We must never yield to the tyranny of permitting others to dictate what can or must be placed, administered, or injected onto or into our bodies. For once that right is ceded, none truly remains.

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

From @WSJOpinion: The NIH will end dangerous gain-of-function research. The U.S. acts to foster life-sciences experiments while minimizing the risk of a pandemic or other catastrophe, writes @DrJBhattacharya
https://t.co/U7EEtcSchh

[Alex Berenson @AlexBerenson]

August 25, 2021: Fauci secretly admits the truth; mRNA Covid jabs failed against hospitalization, not just infection.

Health bureaucrats and the media are STILL lying about this.

"The Israelis... found that the protection against severe disease leading to hospitalization also significantly decreased.

No one else - and I mean no one in the world - was explaining this more loudly and clearly than I was on this account in August 2021.

Two days after Fauci admitted this, the Biden Administration and Pfizer violated my First Amendments rights and forced Twitter to ban me.

The media still has refused to cover that story too.

They can't cover the news but they sure can hide it.

[gript @griptmedia]

BEN SCALLAN compares a news segment on RTÉ from 2016 and 2026 on a 30-degree heat wave to demonstrate just how far down the rabbit hole of climate hysteria the broadcaster has gone.

[Rand Paul @RandPaul]

The same mainstream media that demanded we all trust the science can't bring themselves to report what their favorite scientist wrote in his own diary. I wonder why.

https://t.co/e6Jv70cJio

[Rand Paul @RandPaul]

Years of stonewalling, years of the Washington establishment protecting Anthony Fauci, and now his own private diary confirms what I have said all along: early on, he knew the Wuhan market was not the source of COVID. And he let the country believe otherwise anyway.

Tomorrow he testifies, under oath, and this time the receipts are in his own handwriting.

[Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi]

Someday historians are going to look back and be astonished at the amount of absurd bullshit Americans took pride in believing during this era

[Bjorn Lomborg @BjornLomborg]

2026 Fire in Europe at record lows

Halfway through 2026, Europe has burned less than in any year 2012-25

Every continent is below average, and Africa and the Americas are at record lows

Media only showing stuff burning leaves us badly informed

https://t.co/iDqlYckvRT

You can see all the references in my Twitter thread:
https://t.co/c1gWhtRaBe

[Bjorn Lomborg @BjornLomborg]

Rich World Net Zero has a tiny impact

Even if the US, EU, UK, Australia, Canada, Japan, and the rest of the rich world go Net Zero by 2050

it will only reduce global temperatures by 0.10°C (0.18°F) in 2100

Still, it will cost $100s of trillions

https://t.co/88qhA6UIcp, https://t.co/1ey8ZacGPB, https://t.co/FwQYq8ri6H

[Bjorn Lomborg @BjornLomborg]

The depressing 20-year legacy of An Inconvenient Truth

20 years ago, An Inconvenient Truth put climate change at the center of global debate, shaping politics, influencing leaders, and inspiring a generation of activists.

Two decades later, we can assess not just its impact, but its accuracy. Many of the film’s most alarming predictions did not materialize, while many of the policies it inspired have proven costly and ineffective.

From my latest newsletter: https://t.co/ijK1hTSIc0

Sign up: https://t.co/PIif2dDeWJ

[Bjorn Lomborg @BjornLomborg]

How to manufacture a crisis

A WHO commission wants to declare climate change a “global health emergency.” Their big evidence? Rising heat deaths in Europe. But once you adjust for an aging society, the “crisis” essentially disappears.

Even more dishonestly, the report conceals that cold deaths have declined by approximately 250 times as much as heat deaths have risen.

From my latest newsletter: https://t.co/ijK1hTSIc0

Sign up: https://t.co/PIif2dDeWJ

[Donal De Burca @donal_de_burca]

@businessposthq We keep being told renewables will make electricity cheaper, yet Ireland still has the highest electricity prices in Europe. Consumers paying for backup gas plants, grid instability, curtailment costs & billions in infrastructure. The “cheap renewables” narrative is false.

[Bjorn Lomborg @BjornLomborg]

Climate sanity, finally

The extreme climate scenario that gave huge, scary, and unrealistic results (RCP8.5)

is officially dead

https://t.co/p9UvOs479s

Threads&refs:
https://t.co/810sjT4T7C

[Bjorn Lomborg @BjornLomborg]

Europe’s "Green Dream" is hitting a wall of cold, hard reality.

High energy costs, industrial flight, and public backlash are forcing a massive rethink of climate policy.

Turns out, you can't run a continent on good intentions alone.

https://t.co/7sPCMnm8Qc