Massive 1940 Hercules Explosion - an Act of Domestic Terrorism?

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

On September 12, 1940, twenty-five tons of freshly manufactured gunpowder exploded at the Hercules Powder Plant in Kenvil, N.J., leaving a 13-foot-deep crater in the ground. It generated a shock wave felt 90 miles away and leveled nearly one thousand acres of the plant. Fifty-two workers were killed in the blast, and several hundred more were injured. Victims were laid out on the lawn of Dover General Hospital because there were too many to fit inside.

 

The FBI, under Herbert Hoover, was in charge of the investigation. There were local rumors that the explosion was the work of German undercover agents. One contemporary news article reported that the FBI was already investigating these rumors when Hercules blew up. That account said that the FBI already collected information on everyone who worked at the plant before the blast. The article then mentioned that there was a large pro-Nazi, German-American Bund organization operating out of Camp Nordland in Andover, New Jersey. This was true, but was there a connection?



Early into the investigation after the explosion, the FBI informed the press that the explosion was most like the result of an industrial accident. Most newspapers didn’t mention that the FBI already had an open investigation into an alleged plot to blow the Hercules plant. Rumors of German American sabotage remained just that… rumors.

Exactly two months after the huge Hercules explosion, three smaller U.S. military-industrial plants were blown up within twenty minutes of each other. One was in New Jersey and two in Pennsylvania. These plants manufactured torpedoes, signal flares, and ammunition. Sixteen more workers were killed in these apparent attacks.

This did not appear to be a coincidence. The whiff of sabotage now seemed unmistakable. Today, we know that America was under attack, but who was responsible for killing 68 workers at four of our military manufacturing plants? Where are the FBI’s findings? Why was no one brought to justice for these murders?

A fog settled over these questions leaving a memory gap for everyone who lived through it. To this day, if you ask area residents what caused the Hercules explosion, they echo the same response as those who lived through it eighty years ago… It was either an industrial accident or German sabotage. Even as recently as 2015, Roxbury Township, New Jersey, posted a tribute to those who died in the Hercules blast and gave a description of the event. It concludes:

“Still unanswered is the real cause of the fatal 1940 explosion: Industrial Accident or Nazi Spies?”

But, a fresh review of the evidence points to domestic terror as the most likely cause. This makes the Hercules explosion the seventh deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history. If you search the internet for U.S. domestic terrorist attacks, however, you won’t find Hercules on that list. The fascist extremists who carried out this attack were never publicly identified or brought to justice.

Rachael Maddow reported new details and took a fresh look at the Hercules explosion in Episode 3 of her podcast, Ultra. Her review points convincingly to a terrorist attack by American fascist extremists. The chain of evidence pointing to a domestic attack at Hercules begins in Los Angeles, California, and runs through the United States Congress. Among the principal suspect organizations that planned the attack is the German American Bund in California. 

The German American Bund was originally founded in Buffalo, New York. It was led by Fritz Julius Kuhn. Another suspect organization was the Silver Legion founded by William D. Pelley in Ashland, North Carolina. Both these groups openly aspired to take over the United States government before the United States entered World War II. Both organizations had active branches in California and New Jersey. 

Los Angeles was a hotbed of antisemitic propaganda and pro-Nazi paramilitary groups in the 1930s. These right-wing groups shared a cluster of ideas, values, and actions with the Klu Klux Klan, enough so that political resistance to investigating the Klan helped shield pro-Nazi groups as well. Like the Klan, pro-Nazi groups considered themselves to be true American Patriots as they actively recruited conscripts, raised funds, purchased weapons, trained militia members, and organized military-style marches and demonstrations in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and many other towns and cities across the country. They held large rallies to indoctrinate the public. They coordinated with pro-Nazi organizations in other states to create a large national network determined to overthrow American democracy. 

While they denied it at the time, it was later shown that these right-wing pro-Nazi groups secretly took instructions and money from Hitler’s Germany. By the late 1930s, their violent rhetoric and extreme anti-semitic propaganda became so strident that it alarmed many ordinary citizens.

Leon Lewis was a World War 1 veteran active in the Disabled American Veterans organization. He was a resident of Los Angeles. In 1938 he became alarmed by the violent rhetoric and threats being made by the German American Bund and other pro-Nazi groups in the area. Seeing that law enforcement agencies were reluctant to investigate these groups, he set up his own private spy operation. He recruited four men from Disabled American Veterans and two of their wives to join fascist hate groups, gain the leader's trust, rise up the ranks, and report back to him every day about what these groups were doing. Lewis kept careful logs of what they saw and heard and accumulated detailed records of their plans and operations. It was through Lewis' spy operation that one of his private spies, Neil Ness, learned of plans to target Hercules Powder Company in Kenvil and several other munitions manufacturing plants for an attack.

A year earlier, Martin Dies, was a Democratic Congressman from Texas when he and Samuel Dickstein created the House Committee Investigating Un-American Activities, (HUAC). The Committee was initially called the Dies’ Committee, and Dies was its chairman. The committee was created to root out right-wing and left-wing subversives in the government and other organizations. The committee mainly targeted communist infiltrators and left-wing sympathizers, but also right-wing pro-Nazi organizations. Some members of the Committee were reluctant to investigate the "Klan". When the committee’s Chief Counsel announced that the Dies Committee would not be investigating any KKK activities he said, "The committee has decided that it lacks sufficient data on which to base a probe", to which the ranking Committee member John E. Rankin added: 

"After all, the KKK is an old American institution."

Lewis wrote to Congressman Dies about the trove of information he had collected on the activities of right-wing groups. In 1939, Martin Dies invited Leon Lewis to come to Washington D.C., to testify before his Committee. Lewis accepted the invitation and brought with him Neil Ness who had direct eyewitness information about the plot to sabotage the Hercules and other manufacturing plants.

In October of 1939, Neal Ness testified under oath before the HUAC in Congress. He detailed his involvement and high position in several German American and right-wing pro-Nazi groups in Los Angeles. He provided shocking testimony on how these groups were making plans to blow up military defense plants. He said specifically, “We talked about blowing up the Hercules Powder Plant.” These coordinated attacks were referred to as Der Tag. The phrase "Der Tag" (The Day) was a popular German toast to an imminent military engagement.

Ness’ testimony was so shocking the Committee found it hard to believe. Nevertheless, the Committee made a criminal referral to investigate the reported plot and sent the transcripts to the FBI.  Eleven months later Hercules blew up. 

After the explosion, Congressman Martin Dies, the Chairman of the HUAC, gave a statement to the press in which he said:

"Everyone laughed when a man named Ness testified before our committee a year ago about plans to blow up the Hercules Company. When the plant blew up, it happened the way he said it would.”

While the FBI managed to interrupt many death threats against Jews, Jewish organizations, and other targets of right-wing fascist extremists during this period, its eleven-month lead in the Hercules plot was not enough time to stop it. Nor did an additional two months of investigation foil the three additional attacks. Eighty-four years later there is still no vindication for the victims. We end up today with the same questions people asked from the start. Who was responsible for killing 68 workers at four of our military manufacturing plants? Where are the FBI’s findings? Why was no one brought to justice for these murders?

We have a few additional questions to ask ourselves today. Where did all the fascist extremists go after Pearl Harbor? They seem to have disappeared into the woodwork. What became of the children they were grooming in German American Bund camps to be their movement's future leaders? Is there a link between these fascist youth camps from the past and the dangerous parallels that exist today with this dark history?  Most critically, what lessons from the past can we apply to help understand and navigate the resurgence of fascist extremism today? 

Can Electric Cars Save the Planet?

 

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW*

A discussion with an engineer friend of mine regarding electric vehicles and electric energy production in the United States prompted me to do a brief survey of thermal efficiency rates for various carbon-producing and carbon-free electric power generation options. The results are below.

For me, the whole discussion is animated by the nearly unanimous conclusion of hundreds of climate scientists that we have only six years left to make carbon dioxide reductions sufficient enough to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. We lost a half-century of time to a well-funded disinformation campaign by the fossil fuel industries, whose corporate leaders were the first to discover that their products would eventually lead to a global warming crisis.
Can a rapid transition to electric vehicles save us from global warming?

No! This was never the case. At any rate, it is already too late for half-measures. There are many other major sources of carbon dioxide emissions that need to be brought under control. There are other factors that expedite the problem as well, such as the loss of jungles and forests that capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  Added to other much-needed actions, however, transitioning to electric vehicles is STILL a necessary step.

RENEWABLE ELECTRIC ENERGY
I confirmed that currently, about 60% of our electricity generation is from fossil fuels—coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases. About 18% was from nuclear energy, and about 21% was from renewable energy sources. Our renewable energy sources increase by about 1.5 percentage points per year at this time. So, the current energy mix on our electric grid is about 60% carbon-based and 40% alternative sources. In six years, at the present growth rate of renewable energy sources, it will be about 49% carbon-based and 51% alternative sources. This is still bad news for Earth's climate. It's way too slow to be a determinative factor at this point. 


EV vs. ICE
"Electric vehicles (EVs) are generally 60–73% efficient, depending on the drive cycle. However, when you include the energy recaptured from regenerative braking, EVs can be over 77% efficient. This is because regenerative braking captures energy that would otherwise be lost as heat."

"Modern gasoline engines (ICE) have a maximum thermal efficiency of more than 50%, but most road-legal cars are only about 20% to 40% [efficient] when used to power a car."

CARBON FOOTPRINT OF EV AND ICE VEHICLES:

"The researchers found that, on average, gasoline cars emit more than 350 grams of CO2 per mile driven over their lifetimes. The hybrid and plug-in hybrid versions scored around 260 grams of carbon dioxide per mile, while the fully battery-electric vehicle created just 200 grams. Stats from the U.S. Department of Energy tell a similar story: Using the nationwide average of different energy sources, DOE found that EVs create 3,932 lbs. of CO2 equivalent per year, compared to 5,772 lbs. for plug-in hybrids, 6,258 lbs. for typical hybrids, and 11,435 lbs. for gasoline vehicles."

Thermal Efficiency in Electric Power Generation


ZERO CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS OPTIONS


Wind

What is the ultimate efficiency of wind power generation?

That number is 16/27, or 59.3%. On a practical level with utility-scale wind turbines, the best turbines achieve roughly 75–85% of this 59.3% value, meaning roughly 44–50% efficiency. This is under the most optimal operating conditions.

Solar Thermal

Solar thermal energy is around 70–80% effective at converting solar energy into heat. Solar water heaters are the most common method for converting solar energy into thermal energy. Solar thermal collectors convert solar radiation into heat, which can be used in industrial, residential, and governmental sectors.

Solar Photoelectric

Though most commercial panels have efficiencies from 17% to 20%, researchers have developed PV cells with efficiencies approaching 50%.

Nuclear

New nuclear plants have a thermal efficiency of around 34–36%, while new reactor designs can reach 39%.

Hydro

The efficiency of today's hydroelectric plant is about 90 percent. Hydroelectric plants do not create air pollution, the fuel--falling water--is not consumed, projects have long lives relative to other forms of energy generation, and hydroelectric generators respond quickly to changing system conditions.



CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSION OPTIONS

Coal

New coal-fired plants are about 40% efficient, while CCGT plants can reach 60%.

Natural gas

Natural gas plants can be 39–60% efficient, depending on the type of plant. A simple cycle natural gas power plant is usually 33–43% efficient.

Gas turbine

A simple cycle gas turbine can achieve 20–35% energy conversion efficiency.

Fossil fuel

State-of-the-art fossil fuel plants can reach 46% efficiency.

Combined-cycle systems

Combined-cycle systems can reach higher values, such as over 60% efficiency.

______________________________________

* The main reason I put my degree (MSW) after my name on this blog is because there are so many people named Brian T. Lynch on the internet. 

Duck Pond and a Better Way to Think About Land

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Let me introduce you to a 12,000-year-old feature of Roxbury, New Jersey, that has been off limits to the general public for more than 125 years.

This photo, courtesy of Ashland Chemical Corporation, is likely your first peek at the beautiful Duck Pond. It was mine as well. It is a 15-acre, spring-fed pond in the northeastern corner of the 1,000-acre Hercules property in Kenvil. 

Duck Pond appears on the earliest maps of the area. It has no natural inlet or outlet and apparently never did. Spring water vents up into the pond and then infiltrates back into the shallow, unconfined aquifer upon which it sits. This has likely been true since it was created when the Wisconsin Glacier receded thousands of years ago. 

Old historical documents I've read indicate that this entire tract of land was once the summer home of the Leni Lenape natives, who undoubtedly fished and swam in this pond. It was these original people who referred to the southern wetland on the property as the Great Spring. They named the Black River, which flows from this wetland, “Alamatong,” meaning “gentle flowing.” This refers to the rapid yet smooth flow of its water over a bed of glacial sand. From this Algonquian word, we derive the name Lamington, which is the official name of the stream. 

The reason most of us have never seen Duck Pond is that it is located within a polluted industrial area that has been off-limits to residents and the public for well over one hundred twenty-five years. The production of explosives ceased three decades ago, but there are still hot spots of pollution on the land. It remains an unsafe place to freely roam around. 

What motivates me to write this now is a PowerPoint slide presented by Hartz Mountain Corporation during a Roxbury Township Planning Board hearing. For those who may not know, Hartz Mountain was seeking to build 54 acres of warehouses on a 200-acre parcel on the property. One of the PowerPoint slides labeled Duck Pond as a drainage area. 

I was struck by this sterile language. I've seen similar language in other Hercules-related documents. Indeed, Duck Pond is a drainage area, as is every freshwater lake in the world. However, the use of the term in the context of clean-up operations conveys how the pond was utilized while explosives were manufactured on the property. It is perhaps how the pond is still viewed by some. Duck Pond is yet another place to be addressed on the property- a site that has been horribly abused for a century and a half. 

Just as groups of people can be marginalized and robbed of their personhood through word choices, so too can it happen to portions of our biosphere that we call “property.” Property is a lifeless term that allows our consciences to treat a piece of land as something other than a living habitat. 

My point is that viewing Hercules as a compromised yet beautifully complex habitat should be the foundation for all subsequent considerations. Whether we take active measures to clean up our mess or allow nature time to renew the land on its own, the language we choose to describe it will influence our decisions and the outcomes that follow. We should always be respectful, even reverent, of biological spaces and our use of land. We must not treat the Hercules property with any less consideration due to its troubled past.

————

An 1887 map of “Suckasunny” showing Duck Pond in the McCainsville District of Roxbury. 

A Word About Self-help Against Disinformation Campaigns

 by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

We have all become targets of professional-grade media influence campaigns of one sort or another, and highly effective disinformation attacks are among these. When we are unaware of, or think we are immune to these cyber campaigns, we are, in fact, most vulnerable to them.

Real, personal inoculation against malicious cyber-influencers begins once we accept that we are all capable of falling under the influence of professional disinformation campaigns. Self-inoculation from cyber disinformation begins when we acknowledge that we are all at risk of manipulation by powerful techniques arrayed against us on social media. The most effective attacks are invisible to us. Our change of opinion feels rational to us. It also helps me to know that a lot of money and planning is behind these malicious "cyber attacks" on our thinking [more accurately, on our endurable mental frameworks that influence how we think about things]. It isn't just me, and it isn't happening by chance or as a natural impact of social media.

To protect myself, I have developed a healthy skepticism of any claims that sound extraordinary, emotionally wrought, or discordant with the things I can observe for myself. When this happens, I take the time to investigate (or research) and validate the information, its source, and its proponents. It is time-consuming, but I find it worth my time (usually). It is how I protect myself. In the process, I have come to view people who express grossly invalidated opinions as casualties of cyberwarfare rather than my opponents, political enemies, conspiracy nuts, uninformed, etc., [pick your choice of judgemental terms.]

Here is an early history lesson: 

Russian use began with a "special disinformation office" in 1923. Disinformation was defined in Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1952) as "false information with the intention to deceive public opinion". From this point on, disinformation became a tactic used in Soviet political warfare called active measures. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_disinformation#:~:text=Russian%20use%20began%20with%20a,political%20warfare%20called%20active%20measures. 

2023, The Warmest in 100,000 Years

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

IT IS OFFICIAL!

New York City in June 6, 2023

Last year, 2023, the year when the Canadian wilderness caught fire, was the hottest year on record... by far. In fact, scientists believe it was the hottest year in the last 100,000 years. Global warming is no longer just our future; It is our past and present reality. Quotes from the New York Times:

"On average, in 2023 the planet was 1.48 degrees Celsius warmer than in the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period, when humans began burning fossil fuels on an industrial scale, pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

"This has been a very exceptional year, climate-wise... in a league of its own, even when compared to other very warm years," C3S Director Carlo Buontempo said.

C3S confirmed 2023 as the hottest year in global temperature records going back to 1850. When checked against paleoclimatic data records from sources such as tree rings and air bubbles in glaciers, Buontempo said it was "very likely" the warmest year in the last 100,000 years."

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/2023-was-worlds-hottest-year-record-eu-scientists-confirm-2024-01-09/

The fossil fuel industry did an impressive job forecasting this outcome back in the early 1960s. They did an even more remarkable job of concealing it from the public for years and then creating a false counter-narrative to convince us that global warming is a hoax.

We have to stop listening to them and to all the victims and benefactors of their lies. The electric vehicles we buy this year are purchases delayed over 40 years when it would have made a big difference. Everything we do from here out to lower our carbon footprint impacts only the margins. Let's hope we can still prevent the worst possible outcomes.

ADDENDUM: JANUARY 2024 WAS THE WARMEST JANUARY ON RECORD.

Black River Origin in Mount Arlington Also? Who Knew?

 by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Am I the only one just learning that Mount Arlington hosts the Northernmost tip of the Black River? 

If this isn't already common knowledge, then let's welcome Mount Arlington to the list of many municipalities that share a portion of the Raritan River Basin, the largest river basin entirely within New Jersey's border. The upper Black River tributary in Mount Arlington stretches for about 1.6 miles north, up past Dunlop Pond. There may be another branch heading west along Seasons Drive. 

I don't yet know to what extent the tributary may be spring-fed, but where it crosses under Rt. 80, it is a moderate-sized creek (meaning you can jump over it) under normal weather conditions. It is only one of two natural water sources that enter Hercules. The other tributary is the man-made pipeline that directs water from Drakes Pond under Rt. 46 and into the Great Spring wetland area. All other inputs are from storm drains along Howard Blvd. and Rt. 46. 

If you live in the area and didn't know this, it could be due to a discontinuity observed in the aerial photograms that NJDEP uses to map the states' streams. An old underground pipeline on the 1,000-acre Hercules property in Kenvil creates the apparent discontinuity. 

The normal amount of water volume in this tributary is about a third less than the Drakes Pond inflow. This information is important to me in my quest to estimate how much spring water vents up from the Great Spring within the southern wetland. 

NEWS FLASH: U.S. Lost 88,000 Acres of Natural Forests Last Week

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

NEWS FLASH: 

The United States lost over 88,000 acres of natural forests last week. The world's tropical rainforests lost 200,000 acres just yesterday.

[NEWS UPDATE: Rate of deforestation in 2023 halved in Amazon rainforest: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-67962297 ]

An aerial photo released by Greenpeace shows smoke billowing from forest fires in the Amazon basin in northwestern Brazil.

 

(Victor Moriyama / AFP-Getty Images)

If you missed seeing the headlines, it's because this wasn't reported. This isn't news. The U.S. loses 88,000 acres of forest every week, and tropical forests are disappearing at a rate of 200,000 acres daily.
At current rates, no forests will be left in America in 135 years. Half of the world's tropical forests are already gone and will be gone entirely within 100 years at the current rate. Amazon rainforest alone produces 20% of our global oxygen and removes huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Agriculture is said to be the leading cause of deforestation, but the real underlying cause is our exponential population growth. 

We reached 8 billion people living here at once. The planet cannot sustain the current rate at which we consume natural resources. What is the biggest driver of overpopulation? Impoverishment and scarcity of food and healthcare. There is a correlation between family size and survival uncertainties. The more people fear for their children's survival, the more children they have to ensure survival. Global wealth disparity is a major contributing factor.

Hunger and poverty in the world are not just caused by a lack of food or production but by the unequal and unfair distribution of human essentials. In the U.S. alone, 38% of all food goes unsold or uneaten. That means 149 billion meals end up in landfills each year. The scale of the problem is similar in Europe and many parts of the world.

 
So, the best place to start addressing all of these issues is by reducing wealth inequality on a global scale. Distributive injustice is the root cause of global impoverishment. There is enough food and other goods produced for everyone to have a basic sufficiency. Global impoverishment causes survival uncertainties that result in overpopulation in third-world countries. Overpopulation puts stress on natural resources and the need for more farmland. Families living in the Amazon rainforest slash and burn acres of land each year to feed and care for their families. The loss of natural forests accelerates global warming and the loss of species due to the destruction of their habitat. This is a death spiral that we can and must fix. 

 

How is Electing a Person Disloyal to the Constitution Somehow Unconstitutional?

by Brian T Lynch, MSW

I can’t believe how many otherwise intelligent, non-MAGA people in the media are flummoxed by the Fourteenth Amendment’s provision preventing seditionists from holding public office. The hang-up seems to be that finding Trump ineligible to be President again somehow violates people’s rights to vote for whoever they want. But, such a right never existed in our Constitution. 

There have always been qualifications for public office. Age, citizenship, and term limits have never caused political consternation before. Why, then, is electing a person with no loyalty to the Constitution somehow unconstitutional? If you are elected within the framework of the Constitution, you cannot be permitted to dismantle it from within. That is akin to changing the Constitution by a simple majority vote. The Constitution requires that any changes to it require passage by a super majority in Congress and the consent of a super majority of States. 

Think about it! If Donald Trump is elected, he would first have to swear an oath to uphold the very Constitution that he has already violently violated and is promising to destroy on day one. His oath would be his biggest lie ever.  How can we logically permit it? 

Our Constitution is the highest expression of the people’s will. It is the bones of our democracy and the sinew that holds our union of states together. We have already fought one war of rebellion by a minority of disloyalists. It was a severe test in which 600,000 Americans died to preserve our constitutional union.

 
After the war, the Constitution was amended to clarify that it applied to all men. An oath of allegiance to the Constitution was added for every public office holder. No one who has already broken that oath can hold public office. 

Our democratic republic and Constitution are one. Any impulse to ignore or dismiss sections of it violates the "Will of the People." It weakens our union and threatens majority rule.

 
The Civil War firmly established that we don’t have a right to oppose our democracy. To this day, it is sustained by the vast majority of the people it serves. Disloyalists or seditionists are not allowed to vote it out of existence.

 
So, let’s ignore all this talk about disenfranchising Trump’s supporters. It isn’t true. The overarching will of the people has already spoken. Seditionists who lie about preserving our Constitution are not allowed to serve in public office.

 by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

IT’S DONE!

It has been done since September 2023.

Ashland Chemical, the private company that bought the highly polluted Hercules property more than two decades ago, finally created its first public information website about its clean-up operations in Kenvil. The public website, they said, was to be the centerpiece of Ashland’s first-ever public meeting to discuss their operations and take questions from the general public.

Despite a successful petition drive in late Sumer by the Raritan Headwaters Association, which legally obligated NJDEP to arrange that public hearing, Ashland Chemical has yet to set a date for that meeting. They did promise to create a public-information website, but they launched their new website into obscurity within the vast internet universe. You can find it if you search for it, or I can just give you the link here: [ www.hercules-kenvil.com]

Please! Take some time to explore the new website. Admire the photographs. Read the history. Wonder (as I did) if the subtitle "Committed to progress since 1871" contains a typo on the date. 

Just be sure to visit the library section. That's where the real treasure is. It contains many documents, some over a thousand pages long. These are the documents that Ashland has chosen to make public from the tens of thousands it submitted to NJDEP regarding clean-up efforts. Even though the volume of these documents may overwhelm you, they are a fraction of the total. I can't in good conscience hold on to this information any longer. I have waited for Ashland's to launch this officially for the past three months. The year is drawing to a close, and the company has had plenty of time to hold its public meeting. 

You will notice that the website contains no Q&A feature to carry on a dialogue with the public. It doesn't even have a Frequently Asked Questions section curated by the company. What it does have is a "Contact Us" feature with a privacy disclosure statement that guarantees no one else will ever see your question or any response you might receive. Public communication is now open, but only in one direction.

CALL TO ACTION:

If all your questions are answered after browsing the "Kenvil Works Facility" website, then maybe Ashland and the NJDEP have met their public obligation. If you still have questions, please use the Contact Us feature to ask them your questions and demand a public hearing to discuss the answers. Let them know that, for you, the website doesn't replace a public meeting. Take a screenshot of your writing and save it, or post it online. Once you hit send, you may never see what you wrote again. 

If you are reading this on my blog, please add your comments on the blog page or go to my Facebook group, Mine Hill Environmental, where you can leave your comment or participate in the chat box I will open there. 

Carbon-based Extinction, Petro-industry Radicals Sabotaged the Global Climate Summit

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

The global climate summit this year ended with a whimper. This year's president of the COP28 summit was Sultan Al-Jaber, who is the UAE's environment minister, and the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. At the conference, he said that in coming to the climate conference, he was "... not signing up to any discussion that is alarmist."

The former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, asked him if he would lead on phasing out fossil fuels. His response:

"...there is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says the phase-out of fossil fuels is what's going to achieve 1.5 [degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels]"

Al Jaber's statement is either an intentional distortion or an admission of great ignorance. Anyone with responsibility for policy decisions about climate change knows that too little CO2 in the atmosphere would cause the planet to freeze, and too much would cause the oceans to boil. Carbon dioxide is not the most potent greenhouse gas, but at 0.04% of the air we breathe, it is by far the most common. Methane, for comparison, makes up 0.00017% of the atmosphere. Very small changes in CO2 concentrations have big climate consequences. 

While Carbon dioxide is a small component of Earth's atmosphere, small changes in its atmospheric concentrations have played a leading role in the past five mass extinction events. 

Ordovician Mass Extinction

Carbon dioxide played a central part in the first extinction event on Earth, 630 million years ago. Neoprotozoa in the ocean evolved an ability to use energy from sunlight to bind carbon atoms together to make sugar (food). The first plants! Photosynthesis made them hugely successful. Their growth was unchecked. They captured vast amounts of CO2 from the air, filled the atmosphere with oxygen, and formed a thick layer of biomass over the surface water. The biomass blocked sunlight from directly warming the ocean waters and the drop in CO2 caused global temperatures to freeze. This caused most of the oceans to freeze and deprived it of oxygen. Eighty percent of all life in the ocean became extinct.

Devonian Mass Extinction

Carbon dioxide played a significant role in Earth's second extinction event (or geologically quick series of events) 440 to 460 million years ago when the Earth's climate became unstable and switched quickly between cooling and warming events. Eighty-six percent of all life on earth died off.

Permian Mass Extinction 

Carbon dioxide played a significant role in Earth's third and largest extinction when a very prolonged and massive area of volcanic eruptions in an area half the size of the United States (in Pangea) caused acid rain and pumped huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, heating up the earth and killing 96% of all life on earth.

Triassic-Jurassic Mass Extinction

Carbon dioxide played a major role in Earth's fourth extinction after another atmospheric carbon dioxide spike. Global warming started again, with scientists speculating it lasted eight million years and killed 76% of all living things on Earth.

Cretaceous-Tertiary (or the K-T) Mass Extinction

The fifth major extinction event may have been triggered when a giant asteroid smashed into the earth 65 million years ago. The initial impact caused a blanket of dust and smoke that blocked out all sunlight, killing plant life and starving the most herbivores. But CO2 levels also rose from the global conflagration of the earth's forests following the asteroid's impact.  A very hot climate followed the "asteroid winter" and lasted for thousands of years. Eventually, an atmospheric balance of CO2 returned and ushered in the longest period of temperate climate in Earth's history. It is during this period of climate stability that humans first evolved. 

   

Holocene Mass Extinction (today)

Sultan Al Jaber and most of us may not know or don't believe that the sixth great extinction is unfolding right now. It is called the Holocene extinction. It is an ongoing extinction of the Earth's flora and fauna due to human activities. This is the sixth mass extinction since the existence of Earth in 450 billion years, and an increase of carbon dioxide in the air is again playing a major role. The sixth mass extinction is driven entirely by human activity that includes many factors such as: 

• Increased atmospheric Carbon dioxide due mostly to the burning of ancient fossil fuels 
• Deforestation and the rapid loss of habitat 
• The global spread of toxic (forever) chemicals
• The depletion or degradation of water resources and aquifers 

Every mass extinction event in the past had natural causes over which we would not have any control if it happened again today. But the Holocene Extinction is of our own making. Therefore, we do have the ability to blunt its impact or even reverse course if we change our behaviors. Many people I talk to can't imagine that people's behavior can have a global impact on such a huge planet. But then all of us living today find it impossible to imagine eight billion people sharing the earth's resources at the same time. There have never been nearly so many people alive at one time. The collective actions or inaction of eight billion people can and does have a global impact for the first time in history. 

The COP28 Climate Summit was a real opportunity for the world to come up with global solutions. Instead, it was captured by the petroleum extremists for whom maintaining profits for the rich is the first priority.  

In Pursuit of Peace in the Middle East

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Let’s first set the stage for this latest Middle East conflict.

Creator: IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA | Credit: REUTERS

Yes, Hamas is a terrorist organization that pledges to destroy Israel. It has about 40,000 members, many of whom are strategically embedded within Gaza. Gaza is effectively a small containment area for two million indigenous Palestinians. Most are the offspring of ancestors displaced from Palestine territory after World War II when Winston Churchill and the West recreated a Jewish homeland. This new Jewish homeland hadn’t existed in the Middle East for well over a thousand years.

The forced exodus of Palestine residents to make way for a new Israel was fundamentally unfair, and it imposed enormous generational hardships. The world did not respond as it should with plans to help build and provision a viable, self-governing Palestinian nation. It still does not provide sufficient resources to set up a new and productive homeland for the displaced Palestinian families today, and the anticipated “two-state” solution has faded.

These manufactured circumstances (of course) resulted in several brutal wars funded in part by American Taxpayers in support of Israel’s right to exist. Death and destruction created trauma, deprivation, chaos, and disorder for all families living in the region, including families in Israel. It also produced generational enmity and a hardening of hearts on all sides of the conflict that decades of peace negotiation have not overcome. Just as surely as night follows day, hatred has led to corruption and the dissipation of hope. For decades Hamas has ruled over the people of Gaza with a heavy hand for their own self-serving interests. At the same time, Israel has been treating all Gazans as hostile enemies, which adds to their depravations and despair.

This is the morass within which the brutal attack on innocent Israeli civilians took place on October 7th. It came at a time when the Netanyahu government in Israel is radically rightwing, anti-Palestinian, and out of step with the majority of Israelis. The Netanyahu government has pledged to eradicate Hamas. Hamas knew such an intensely brutal surprise attack over Israel’s border would drive Israel's leadership crazy and force unrestrained military retribution. Hamas strategically embedded its fighters/martyrs within the most populous and sensitive civilian areas to use its innocent people as human shields. This move maximizes the civilian casualties that would follow an unrestrained counter-attack. They knew this would inflame passions, destabilize the whole region, and foment Jewish hatred around the globe.

The plan is working. Israel is bombing civilian areas to reach the Hamas fighters hiding among the people. Almost half of the casualties are children. Despite a kill ratio estimated to be 50 civilians killed for every Hamas leader who dies, the Netanyahu government will not show any restraint. They say they need to keep pressure on Hamas for the return of the 240 hostages taken during the October 7th raid. But ask yourself, what do you call a person forced to act as a human shield for a bad guy holding a weapon?

The answer: A HOSTAGE!

Innocent civilians in Gaza are being held hostage by Hamas. The terrorists wanted to show the world the extent of Israel's disregard for human life in Gaza. For its part, Israeli leaders are accommodating that wish. The necessary military response to the October 7th attack required discernment and strategic restraint by Israel’s leaders. That isn’t happening. Even the Biden Administration, which unequivocally supported Israel’s right to defend itself, is starting to recoil from the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza. Anti-Semitic hate crimes are now breaking out in the United States and across the globe. Israel’s intervention strategies need to be completely turned around in order to defeat Hamas, prevent a greater conflict in the region, free ALL the hostages in Gaza, both Israeli and Gaza’s, and show the world that Israel is ready and worthy of pursuing peace with its neighbors.

PREQUEL: https://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2023/10/israel-and-palestine-at-war-what-side.html

Addendum: November 23, 2023 (Thanksgiving Day) - Israel has revised its death toll downward from the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to about 1,200 people. As of November 21, 2023, more than 14,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed in Gaza due to Israel's counterattacks. This includes more than 5,500 children. That means more than four innocent children and seven adult Palestinians have been killed for each Israeli victim of the attack. Qatar negotiators just announced that a truce will begin tomorrow morning and the first hostages will be released in the afternoon. Perhaps the pause will allow Israeli leaders to reflect on Exodus 19:6, which says, "And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel".  

To quote Bob Dylan, " Yes, and how many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died." The answer is blowing in the wind.

LOCAL JOURNALISM IS IN CRITICAL CONDITION!

March 5, 2023

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Local journalism in Morris County was severely disabled a decade ago, but its dismantling went
largely unreported. The remaining news organizations didn’t adequately cover the story of their own decline.

 

Example of a Local Newspaper edition in 1968

The Daily Record is just one example. Morris County had 485,000 residents in 2005 when over three dozen journalists and editors worked at the Daily Record. They covered the county seven days a week. The Star-Ledger also had a full-time complement of reporters covering Morris County.

Today, with over 500 thousand residents in the county, the Daily Record has just one full-time reporter, William Westhoven, doing his best to cover it all. Ben Horowitz of the Star-Ledger is assigned to cover Morris County Court news but also covers environmental stories in Northern New Jersey. Other reporters cover the county as part of a more regional news beat.

Since the 1990’s most local newspapers in the county and throughout New Jersey were taken over by giant corporate news conglomerates. Local newsrooms were decimated by layoffs, operations were consolidated, and local news operations were dismantled in what was called cost-saving moves.

In 2005 the Daily Record of Morris County had a vibrant news business with over 14 local news reporters covering every town. Reporters like Michael Daigle, Rob Jennings, Matt Monochio, Rob Seman, Tehani Schneider, Jenna McKnight, Abbott Koloff, and my own daughter Sarah N. Lynch, were among a team of reporters dedicated to covering Morris County. They had no trouble finding important news of interest to their readers.

The Daily Record employed at least six photojournalists back then, including Karen Fucito, Bob Karp, John Bell, Danielle Austen, Tyson Trish, and Dawn Benko. The paper had a Features Team led by Jim Bohen, with respected reporters such as Lorraine Ash. There was also a full complement of sports reporters, a small business desk, a team of assignment and copy editors, and what was called a Plus Section for hyper-local reporting led by Joe Arney.

The Daily Record was purchased by Gannett in the late 1990s. The company owns U.S.A.Today and 235 other newspapers, making it the largest owner of newspapers in the United States. 

I would love to hear from any former Morris County journalists, named or unnamed in this post. What do you have to say about the rapid decline of the local news business here in the county? I would love to hear your story. (Also: Please let me know of any corrections to the information above.)

Of course, the demise of local journalism here and around the country didn’t just happen. It has a history spanning just several decades. But the trend remains a mostly downward spiral.

In October 2013, Richard A. Lee wrote a dissertation on the Role of the Media In New Jersey’s 2005 and 2009 Gubernatorial Elections. His research then is history worth reading. Here are a few quotes from Mr. Lee’s research:

During the first decade of the 21st Century, two developments affected the manner in which New Jersey residents obtained news and information about their state. The size of newsroom staff at the newspapers covering the state was reduced substantially through buyouts, layoffs, cutbacks, and consolidations, and the growth of the Internet altered the manner in which news was gathered, reported, and disseminated, placing new demands on depleted news staffs. Although neither development was unique to New Jersey…

A content analysis of the coverage of New Jersey’s 2005 and 2009 gubernatorial elections, coupled with three sets of interviews with individuals involved in both campaigns, showed that the quality of news coverage declined during this four-year period. Stories were reported in less depth, with less context and with more emphasis on personalities and horserace issues than on substantive public policy matters.

Going back to the 1990s, the drive to turn a profit became a higher priority for media companies and their corporate owners... So when the financial downturn hit in 2008, Gannett’s New Jersey dailies, then numbering six, suffered through what Bob Ingle, a former senior political columnist for Gannett NJ, called a “massacre,” shedding more than 400 jobs in 2008 and 2009. The Trenton bureau became a two-person operation, down from nine.

The decline in local journalism continued. In January of 2017, David Chen in a New York Times article wrote an article about the lack of media watchdogs in New Jersey. At that time he wrote:

The Star-Ledger’s parent company, Advance Publications, presided over a 45 percent paring of the newsroom in 2008, and cut an additional 167 jobs in 2014… Another Advance paper, The Times of Trenton, slashed its newsroom to 30 from 90 between 2007 and 2009, and closed its statehouse bureau, according to Mr. Lee.

More from Mr. Lee's 2013 dissertation:

“News entities no longer are able to regularly provide in-depth stories by experienced reporters unpacking the major issues confronting the state. Fortunately, new news platforms are emerging in New Jersey and elsewhere to fill this void [a reference to TAPinto.com and PATCH.com]. However, the new media landscape requires a greater commitment from citizens. Becoming an informed and educated citizen in the 21st Century is not a passive activity. To fulfill their roles in the democratic process, citizens can no longer rely on the media to provide them with the information they need. Instead, they must seek it out from the plethora of material available online and decide what is credible and what is not, what is valuable and what is not, so they can participate in the democratic process as informed citizens and keep democracy strong and healthy.”

This seems to be especially true in Morris County, which has become somewhat of a news desert with only a handful of municipalities fully covered by local news sites such as Patch.com and TAPinto.net.

For a more historical context, here is a table showing perhaps only a partial list of Morris County newspapers over the years.

NOTE - Nov. 1, 2023: I wrote this piece about local journalism in March of this year but didn't publish it in this blog until this past weekend. I thought I had published it, but it somehow slipped through the cracks in my busy life. I noticed it was missing when local Facebook friends complained that a fatal accident in Mine Hill got no news coverage in any of the understaffed news outlets that cover surrounding towns. This was an opening to have a discussion about the fact that we live in a news desert. Today I learned of a recent article on the subject written by Dan Golden in ProPublica. Dan is a nationally renowned journalist, editor, and author from Massachusetts with years of experience in the news business. His article highlights the complexities of local news reporting and its decline in America. Here is a link to his article:  

https://www.propublica.org/article/local-newspaper-legacy-springfield-massachusetts

Gov't Executions - The Company We Keep

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

I'm looking forward to watching the new opera, "Dead Man Walking." I'm not a proponent of capital punishment and was looking at some current statistics ahead of time. I want to share some of what I found.

As of late 2022, 53 countries retain capital punishment, 111 countries have completely abolished it, seven have abolished it for domestic crimes while maintaining it for special circumstances such as war crimes, and 24 are abolitionist in practice. There are 193 countries in the world. That means capital punishment isn't practiced in 70% of all the countries in the world.

But more shockingly, look at the company we keep in terms of the frequency of executions. China is the big outlier executing thousands of citizens per year. We were the fifth most active in the world last year, and look - There is not another primarily "Christian" state among the top ten or beyond. In the USA, capital punishment was used by 6 of 50 states in 2022: Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Isn't it ironic that states where the people trust governments the least have the most government executions?

Popularity for the death penalty is highest among white Evangelical Protestants (53%) and Protestants in general (50%). Government executions, as reported by Amnesty International, took place in 20 of the world's 195 countries last year.

Israel and Palestine at War. What Side Are Your On?

“Are you for us or for our enemies? “Joshua asked.

 “Neither,” said an angel of the Lord.

 

In the aftermath of the horrific massacres of innocent Israelis by criminal Hamas terrorists who control and subjugate their own Palestinian people, I wish Israel had a more sagacious leader to pursue justice for all. I hope I’m wrong, but the stage seems to be set for more humanitarian tragedy.

 

I hear the familiar drumbeats of war, the same rhythms that pushed us into Iraq. It has been unleashed on American and international news organizations once again to polarize us into believing there is a single choice to make. We must all support Israel!

 

It’s a false choice in this sense. There are two warring governments, each believing they are justified in their aggression against the other nation. Then, on both sides, there are innocent children and families caught up in violence. This third side is the God’s-Eye view based on circumstances not unlike what Joshua faced before the battle of Jericho:

 

“Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”

 

14“Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?”

 

15 The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.” Joshua 5:13-15

 

Taking up arms may be necessary from this perspective, but vengeance remains taboo. “Vengeance is mine, “says the Lord. It’s not our choice to make.

 

The faithful Jews of Israel know they are called to be a blessing in the world. They are called to be a nation of priests. That is the side of Israel that has been seeking more humanitarian Israeli government policies and treatment for Palestinian children and families over the years. That is the side of Israel on which I stand. I am on the side of blameless children and families on both (all) sides of the conflict. They must be protected and cared for amid the military response. But how is it possible?

 

The Hamas attackers know how the current leadership in Israel will likely respond to their unspeakably heinous attacks. They know it will rain hellfire down on innocent Palestinians. In the past, Israel has met their crazy, bloody incursions with even more indiscriminate slaughter, much to the condemnation of the Arab world. That is their plan. If the United States appears to support this conduct of war now, our status in the world will be diminished as well. It is a trap that Hamas hopes to achieve. They want the rest of the world to hate and condemn all Jews.

 

The situation Israel faces as it prepares for battle requires great discernment and mercy for the innocent lives of those trapped in Gaza. A victory against Hamas conducted in a righteous manner, which protects innocent children and families, can lead to peace and Justice for everyone. God demands nothing less.

ADDENDUM: https://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2023/11/in-pursuit-of-peace-in-middle-east.html