A Yellowstone National Park trail camera received a surprising visitor last month.
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EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
The U.S. is beginning the new year with a new national park.
Rafters enjoy a scenic stretch of the New River Gorge National River. National Park Service
Like many other plant-based foods and products, CBD oil is one dietary supplement where "organic" labels are very important to consumers. However, there are little to no regulations within the hemp industry when it comes to deeming a product as organic, which makes it increasingly difficult for shoppers to find the best CBD oil products available on the market.
Spruce
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjI3OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyOTM2NzgzOX0.axY0HjeqRctJsR_KmDLctzDpUBLBN-oNIdqaXDb4caQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="774be" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8379f35b1ca8a86d0e61b7d4bfc8b46e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="spruce organic cbd oil" data-width="710" data-height="959" /><p>As one of the best brands in the business, Spruce CBD is well-known for its potent CBD oils that feature many additional beneficial phytocannabinoids. This brand works with two family-owned, sustainably focused farms in the USA (one located in Kentucky and one in North Carolina) to create its organic, small product batches. The max potency Spruce CBD oil contains 2400mg of full-spectrum CBD extract, but the brand also offers a lower strength tincture with 750mg of CBD in total.</p>CBDistillery
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDcwMjkzNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMTU4OTM4Nn0.ypRdeDSBcE87slYrFfVrRwtJ2qGIK6FD5jBB4pndTMo/img.jpg?width=980" id="b473b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9930b53c9d58cb49774640a61c3e3e75" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="cbdistillery cbd oil" data-width="1244" data-height="1244" /><p>All of the products from CBDistillery are <a href="https://ushempauthority.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">U.S. Hemp Authority Certified</a>, and for good reason. The company only uses non-GMO and pesticide-free industrial hemp that's grown organically on Colorado farms. Its hemp oils are some of the most affordable CBD products on the market, yet they still maintain a high standard of quality. CBDistillery has a wide variety of CBD potencies across its product line (ranging from 500mg to 5000mg per bottle) and offers both full-spectrum and broad-spectrum CBD oils to give customers a completely thc-free option.</p>FAB CBD
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjIyNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2NDIwOTEyMn0.MlTjz096FJ0ev_-soK7_Z-FeQeJczWoeh9Qi9SSkHsY/img.jpg?width=980" id="04b26" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="76aa4862f44603242e318982acea6646" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="fab cbd oil" data-width="800" data-height="800" /><p>For an organic CBD oil that has it all, FAB CBD offers plenty of variety for any type of consumer. All of its products are made with zero pesticides and extracted from organically grown Colorado industrial hemp. FAB CBD oil comes in five all-natural flavors (mint, vanilla, berry, citrus, and natural) and is also available in four strengths (300, 600, 1200, and 2400mg per bottle).</p>NuLeaf Naturals
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjIxOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NzExNTgyMX0.D6qMGYllKTsVhEkQ-L_GzpDHVu60a-tJKcio7M1Ssmc/img.jpg?width=980" id="94e4a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3609a52479675730893a45a82a03c71d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="nuleaf naturals organic cbd oil" data-width="600" data-height="600" /><p>As an industry-leading brand, it comes as no surprise that NuLeaf Naturals sources its CBD extract from organic hemp plants grown on licensed farms in Colorado. The comany's CBD oils only contain two ingredients: USDA certified organic hemp seed oil and full spectrum hemp extract.</p><p>NuLeaf Naturals uses one proprietary CBD oil formula for all of its products, so you will get the same CBD potency in each tincture (60mg per mL), but can purchase different bottle sizes depending on how much you intend to use.</p>Charlotte's Web
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDcwMjk3NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MzQ0NjM4N30.SaQ85SK10-MWjN3PwHo2RqpiUBdjhD0IRnHKTqKaU7Q/img.jpg?width=980" id="84700" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a2174067dcc0c4094be25b3472ce08c8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="charlottes web cbd oil" data-width="1244" data-height="1244" /><p>Perhaps one of the most well-known brands in the CBD landscape, Charlotte's Web has been growing sustainable hemp plants for several years. The company is currently in the process of achieving official USDA Organic Certification, but it already practices organic and sustainable cultivation techniques to enhance the overall health of the soil and the hemp plants themselves, which creates some of the highest quality CBD extracts. Charlotte's Web offers CBD oils in a range of different concentration options, and some even come in a few flavor options such as chocolate mint, orange blossom, and lemon twist.</p>- Best CBD Oils of 2020: Reviews & Buying Guide - EcoWatch ›
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National Park Ranger Condemned for Attacking Unarmed Indigenous Man on Sacred Native Land
By Brett Wilkins
Indigenous and wilderness conservation groups were among those on Wednesday responding with outrage to video of a National Park Service ranger tasering an unarmed Indigenous man after he walked off a trail in Petroglyph National Monument in New Mexico on Sunday and then refused to comply with the ranger's orders.
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Trending
By Emily Lin
Editor's note: As wildfires came dangerously close to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in September 2020, the curator of the archives there worked with Emily Lin, librarian and head of digital curation at the University of California Merced, to evacuate the archives to keep them safe. In this interview, Lin explains how they evacuated the records, what's in them and why they're worth preserving.
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7f2b2de39bc2fe3c885243b4eb770c0e"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tas_speBEYw?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
Kings Canyon is a rugged glacier-carved valley more than a mile deep. Crd637 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
<p>There's an incredible photographic record – tens of thousands of photographs that cover pretty much every place within the park. There are maps of the sequoia groves, maps related to how trails and roads and other buildings were constructed. We take these trails for granted, but they were huge undertakings involving hundreds of workers breaking rocks, cutting trees and excavating for years. They worked through the winter sometimes to do it within schedule. These projects also provided jobs during <a href="https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/dilsaver-tweed/chap6a.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Great Depression</a>.</p>Trump Administration Sued Over 'Outrageous Assault' on Tongass National Forest Protections
By Jessica Corbett
A coalition of Indigenous groups, businesses, and conservation organizations on Wednesday sued the Trump administration over its "arbitrary and reckless" removal of roadless protections for the nearly 17 million-acre Tongass National Forest in Alaska, warning that the rollback could devastate local communities, wildlife, and the climate.
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The gateway to Yellowstone National Park is now safe from mining.
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For bears and the people that love them, it's the most wonderful time of the year.
<div id="b2c7f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6a66711f5acee75ef45787edb3f12cc7"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1313660315893141504" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Match 11: Lardaceous Leviathan Levels Chunky Challenger The votes are in! You’ve crowned the Earl of Avoirdupois,… https://t.co/4SlXOpVBcH</div> — Katmai National Park (@Katmai National Park)<a href="https://twitter.com/KatmaiNPS/statuses/1313660315893141504">1602036000.0</a></blockquote></div>
<div id="bc390" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7ec387bc0962cc207aae4e2fa0a5488b"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1313513386878152705" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Today’s the day we will crown 2020’s Fat Bear Week Champion. Where 747’s sedulous quest for salmon secured him a st… https://t.co/tBnlt5eyCS</div> — Katmai National Park (@Katmai National Park)<a href="https://twitter.com/KatmaiNPS/statuses/1313513386878152705">1602000969.0</a></blockquote></div>
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Trending
America's largest national forest, Tongass National Forest in Alaska, will be opened up to logging and road construction after the Trump administration finalizes its plans to open up the forest on Friday, according to The New York Times.
Aerial view of the Tongass National Forest. Alan Wu / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0
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A national park in Thailand has come up with an innovative way to make sure guests clean up their own trash: mail it back to them.
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Trending
The Trump Administration released a proposed rule allowing oil and gas drilling on millions of acres of protected national forests, The Houston Chronicle reported.
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Watch Yellowstone’s Giantess Geyser ‘Roar Back to Life’ After 6 Years of Silence
One of Yellowstone National Park's largest geysers erupted this August after more than six years of silence.
Giantess Geyser Erupts!
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7af6828befbe06b40c848ea8ec565dbf"><div class="fb-video" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/151418891540140/videos/2653881088193039/" data-allowfullscreen="true"></div></div>- National Park Week: Take a Virtual Tour - EcoWatch ›
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Twitter Posts Show That People Are Profoundly Sad – and Visiting Parks to Feel Happy
By Joe Roman and Taylor Ricketts
The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is the deepest and longest period of malaise in a dozen years. Our colleagues at the University of Vermont have concluded this by analyzing posts on Twitter. The Vermont Complex Systems Center studies 50 million tweets a day, scoring the "happiness" of people's words to monitor the national mood. That mood today is at its lowest point since 2008 when they started this project.
The Hedonometer measures happiness through analysis of key words on Twitter, which is now used by one in five Americans. This chart covers 18 months from early 2019 to July 2020, showing major dips in 2020. hedonometer.org
<p>These same tweets also indicate a potential salve. Before pandemic lockdowns began, doctoral student <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0P0ZYbIAAAAJ&hl=en" target="_blank">Aaron Schwartz</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10045" target="_blank">compared tweets before, during, and after visits to 150 parks, playgrounds and plazas</a> in San Francisco. He found that park visits corresponded with a spike in happiness, followed by an afterglow lasting up to four hours.</p><p>Tweets from parks contained fewer negative words such as "no," "not" and "can't," and fewer first-person pronouns like "I" and "me." It seems that nature makes people more positive and less self-obsessed.</p><p>Parks keep people happy in times of global crisis, economic shutdown and public anger. Research has also shown that transmission rates for COVID-19 are <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Is-risk-of-coronavirus-transmission-lower-15287602.php" target="_blank">much lower outdoors than inside</a>. As scholars who study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yFzb2EUAAAAJ&hl=en" target="_blank">conservation</a> and how nature <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CCnUeN8AAAAJ&hl=en" target="_blank">contributes to human well-being</a>, we see opening up parks and creating new ones as a straightforward remedy for Americans' current blues.</p>Park Visits Are Up During the Pandemic
<p>According to the Hedonometer, sentiments expressed online started trending lower in mid-March as the impacts of the pandemic became clear. As lockdowns continued, they registered the lowest sentiment scores on record. Then in late May, effects from George Floyd's death in police custody and the following protests and police response once again could be seen on Twitter. May 31, 2020 was the saddest day of the project.</p><p>Recent surveys of park visitors around the University of Vermont have shown people <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/sd3h6" target="_blank">using green spaces more</a> since COVID-19 lockdowns began. Many people reported that parks were highly important to their well-being during the pandemic.</p><div id="4c7e4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bc0ac146ab2a94228f32d973fc2ab272"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1289428912879964160" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">#Goldengatepark #sf #quarantinemood https://t.co/9l3ufnbkt6</div> — Suvd (@Suvd)<a href="https://twitter.com/Suvd19486406/statuses/1289428912879964160">1596258783.0</a></blockquote></div><p>The powerful effects of nature are strongest in large parks with more trees, but smaller neighborhood parks also provide a significant boost. Their impact on happiness is real, measurable and lasting.</p><p>Twitter records show that parks increase happiness to a level similar to the bounce at Christmas, which typically is the happiest day of the year. Schwartz has since expanded his <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.10658.pdf" target="_blank">Twitter study</a> to the 25 largest cities in the U.S. and found this bounce everywhere.</p><p>Parks and public spaces won't cure COVID-19 or stop police brutality, but they are far more than playgrounds. There is growing evidence that parks contribute to mental and physical health in a range of communities.</p><p>In a 2015 study, for example, Stanford researchers sent people out for one of two walks: through a local park or on a busy street. Those who walked in nature showed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2015.02.005" target="_blank">improved moods and better memory performance</a> compared to the urban group. And a team led by <a href="https://penniur.upenn.edu/people/eugenia-gina-south" target="_blank">Gina South</a> of the University of Pennsylvania showed in a 2018 study that greening and cleaning up blighted vacant lots in Philadelphia <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.0298" target="_blank">reduced local residents' feelings of depression, worthlessness and poor mental health</a>.</p>
Creative Strategies
<p>It isn't easy to create new parks on the scale of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park or the Washington Mall, but smaller projects can expand outdoor space. Options include greening vacant lots, closing streets and investing in existing parks to make them safer, greener and shadier and support wildlife.</p><p>These initiatives don't have to be capital-intensive. In the University of Pennsylvania study, for example, renovating a vacant lot by removing trash, planting grass and trees and installing a low fence cost only about US$1,600.</p><p>Urban green space is most needed in neighborhoods that have lacked funding for parks, especially given <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/nyregion/coronavirus-race-deaths.html" target="_blank">COVID-19's disproportionate impact on Black and Latinx people</a>.</p><p>Cities can also create parklike spaces by <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-fewer-cars-on-us-streets-now-is-the-time-to-reinvent-roadways-and-how-we-use-them-140408" target="_blank">closing streets to cars</a>. Many cities worldwide are currently retooling their transportation systems for the post-COVID-19 world in order to <a href="https://thecityfix.com/blog/bicycles-slower-speeds-livable-city-paris-mayor-anne-hidalgo-plans-ambitious-second-term-dario-hidalgo/" target="_blank">reallocate public space</a>, widen sidewalks and make more space for nature.</p><p>Urban designers, artists, ecologists and other citizens can play a direct role, too, creating pop-up parks and green spaces. Some advocates <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-15/a-brief-history-of-park-ing-day" target="_blank">transform parking spaces into mini-parks</a> with grass, potted trees and seating for just the time on the meter, to make a larger point about turning so much public space over to cars.</p><p>Or cities can invest a little more. Minneapolis, Cincinnati and Arlington, Virginia, have won <a href="https://www.tpl.org/parkscore" target="_blank">national recognition</a> for their ambitious investments in public park systems. These areas could serve as models for neighborhoods that lack access to parks.</p><div id="25fd0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="383f0d2df0237e9359c30dcce6cd6c42"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1276558744835379201" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Looking to safely get outside? Check out the best parks for social distancing in this year's top ten ParkScore citi… https://t.co/HJjEtDsrTD</div> — The Trust for Public Land (@The Trust for Public Land)<a href="https://twitter.com/tpl_org/statuses/1276558744835379201">1593190296.0</a></blockquote></div>
A New Park Deal?
<p>The United States has historically driven economic recovery with major infrastructure investments, like the New Deal in the 1930s and the 2009 <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/american-recovery-and-reinvestment-act.asp" target="_blank">American Reinvestment and Recovery Act</a>. Such investments could easily include nature-positive spaces.</p><p>Parks are not panaceas, as evidenced by the widely publicized <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/nyregion/amy-cooper-false-report-charge.html" target="_blank">racist confrontation between a white woman and a Black birder</a> in New York's Central Park in early July. But Hedonometer data add to a <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/7/eaax0903?utm_source=miragenews&utm_medium=miragenews&utm_campaign=news" target="_blank">growing body of evidence</a> that they provide <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1807504116" target="_blank">clear mental health benefits</a>. Creating and expanding parks also <a href="https://www.nrpa.org/contentassets/f568e0ca499743a08148e3593c860fc5/economic-impact-study-summary.pdf" target="_blank">generates jobs and economic activity</a>, with much of the money spent locally.</p><p>We believe investments in nature are well worth it, offering both short-term solace in difficult times and long-term benefits to health, economies and communities.</p>- Growing Up Near Nature Is Good for Your Adult Mental Health, New ... ›
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