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Bears Ears is my property. And yours. And Trump's. Here's why he shouldn't have killed it.

On Monday, Dec. 4, President Donald Trump announced that he'd be slashing the size of Utah's Bears Ears National Monument.

The southwestern landscape — which currently covers 1.3 million acres of red rock canyons, sweeping vistas, and archaeology sites, such as ancient cliff dwellings — would be shrunk to about 15% of its current size. Another nearby monument, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, would also be cut by about half.

[rebelmouse-image 19530301 dam="1" original_size="750x364" caption="Photo by Bob Wick/Bureau of Land Management/Flickr." expand=1]Photo by Bob Wick/Bureau of Land Management/Flickr.

National monuments are sites already owned by the federal government that have been set aside as particularly important to cultural or natural heritage. The Statue of Liberty is a national monument, for example.

Bears Ears was designated as a national monument in late 2016 by President Barack Obama after lobbying from local environmentalists, outdoor enthusiasts, and local Native American tribes to protect them from oil and gas extraction, logging, mining, or other environmental harms.

In his announcement about this decision, Trump explained, "Some people think that the natural resources of Utah should be controlled by a small handful of very distant bureaucrats located in Washington."

But this is a wild mischaracterization of how protected lands actually work and who owns them.

National monuments aren't just pretty places for elites kept around for their good looks. They're assets that belong to the people — and there are lots of reasons why that matters.

[rebelmouse-image 19530302 dam="1" original_size="750x499" caption="Tourists check out ancient rock art at Bears Ears. Photo by Bob Wick/Bureau of Land Management/Flickr." expand=1]Tourists check out ancient rock art at Bears Ears. Photo by Bob Wick/Bureau of Land Management/Flickr.

For one thing, they're a good investment.

National parks, monuments, and other public lands are the backbones of domestic tourism and outdoor recreation such as hunting, fishing, and hiking. The outdoors industry is worth more than $800 billion a year and supports 7.6 million jobs.

In fact, a study showed that just being near protected lands could help bring economic growth to small towns or rural areas.

For another, the wild areas of the United States help nourish and sustain its citizens.

About 124 million Americans get their drinking water from national forests and grasslands. And forests remove as much as 10% of America's carbon emissions from the atmosphere each year.

Finally, many of them help protect our history from literal grave-robbers.

[rebelmouse-image 19530303 dam="1" original_size="750x499" caption="Ancient cliff dwellings. Photo by Bob Wick/Bureau of Land Management/Flickr." expand=1]Ancient cliff dwellings. Photo by Bob Wick/Bureau of Land Management/Flickr.

Bears Ears, for instance, has been home to the local Native American tribes since time beyond memory and is home to thousands of important historical and archaeological sites, some dating back as far as 13,000 years ago. Looting, vandalism, and grave-robbery has plagued the area for years, and archaeologists and historians were hoping that federal protection might finally put an end to it. Now those hopes have been dashed.

"This is the worst-case scenario," Jason Chuipka, co-owner of Woods Canyon Archaeological Consultants, told Nature.

The New York Times quoted Helaman Thor Hale and Andrea Hale, who are Native Americans, as saying of Trump's move, “It’s a historical trauma our people have been through over and over."

But listen, you're not here for a deluge of facts and quotes. If you are, there are plenty of amazing articles and resources out there that show how incredible our parks and monuments are. What you're here for is this:

This land is not just Trump's land. It's your land.

[rebelmouse-image 19530304 dam="1" original_size="750x433" caption="The Valley of the Gods in Bears Ears. Photo by Bob Wick/Bureau of Land Management/Flickr." expand=1]The Valley of the Gods in Bears Ears. Photo by Bob Wick/Bureau of Land Management/Flickr.

National parks and monuments aren't the president's land or Congress' land. They are just the stewards of them. The real owners are all of us.

Trump's decision is already being challenged in the courts. On Monday, a coalition of Native American tribes filed a lawsuit. Environmental organizations like The Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society have followed suit, and the retailer Patagonia announced it will as well.

Until these cases are decided, however, the fate of Bears Ears is uncertain.

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ACUVUE launches a new campaign to inspire Gen Z to put down their phones and follow their vision

What will you create on your social media break? Share it at #MyVisionMySight.

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If you’ve always lived in a world with social media, it can be tough to truly understand how it affects your life. One of the best ways to grasp its impact is to take a break to see what life is like without being tethered to your phone and distracted by a constant stream of notifications.

Knowing when to disconnect is becoming increasingly important as younger people are becoming aware of the adverse effects screen time can have on their eyes. According to Eyesafe Nielsen, adults are now spending 13-plus hours a day on their digital devices, a 35% increase from 2019.1. Many of us now spend more time staring at screens on a given day than we do sleeping which can impact our eye health.

Normally, you blink around 15 times per minute, however, focusing your eyes on computer screens or other digital displays have been shown to reduce your blink rate by up to 60%.2 Reduced blinking can destabilize your eyes’ tear film, causing dry, tired eyes and blurred vision.3

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via UnbreakableMomma/TikTok

Karlie Smith shows the meal she's bringing to the restaurant for her son.

A mom who admitted she packs her 2-year-old a meal when they go out to dinner has started an interesting debate on TikTok about restaurant etiquette and how it applies to young children.

The video posted by Ohio mom, Karlie Smith (unbreakablemomma on TikTok), has received nearly 600,000 views and has over 1,850 comments.

“Call me cheap, call me whatever, but if we’re going out to a restaurant, I’m packing my kid a meal," Smith, 21, said in her post. "I do this for many reasons. On Friday nights, my family and I get together, and tonight, we’re getting food out. My son is not getting food out.”

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Man rewatches shows from his childhood and his recaps of the bonkers storylines are priceless

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@hearthrobert/TikTok

These plots makes zero sense.

While there are no doubt some timeless classics from our childhood that remain every bit as amazing as we remember, many are straight-up cringey upon a later viewing. Really, it’s to be expected as societal viewpoints change…sort of a marker of how far we’ve collectively come.

And so, what do we do with these problematic pieces of old-school pop culture? Well, we can certainly update them to better reflect a more modern attitude, but that also comes with a set of potential problems. Or we could simply never watch them again. Certainly an option given all the content out there. But then we might miss an opportunity to better understand what seemed to work for the mainstream then, and why it doesn’t work now.

And then there’s the third option—allow ourselves to be entertained by their cringiness.

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18-year-old took her college savings and bought the restaurant where she was a dishwasher

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There are many way to invest in your future

Eighteen year old Samantha Frye has traded college life for entrepreneurship, and she has no regrets.

Frye began working at Rosalie's Restaurant in Strasburg, Ohio at 16 as a dishwasher, working up the ranks as a kitchen prep, server, then line cook. All while working a second job, sometimes third job.

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77-year-old woman decides she's the love of her life and marries herself.

We joke about marrying ourselves or a platonic friend if some arbitrary amount of time has passed without a proposal from an imaginary suitor. And sure, some people do wind up marrying a friend in more of a business arrangement, but it's not very common that someone follows through with marrying themselves.

Dorothy "Dottie" Fideli, decided that she was going to break the mold. The 77-year-old sat down and thought about all of the things she had done in life and who was with her the entire time cheering her on. It was an easy answer: herself. She was her biggest cheerleader, the person who always showed up and the love of her life, so Fideli made the plan to marry herself.

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12-year-old Texas girl saves her family from carbon monoxide poisoning

She knew something was wrong with her mom and brother, which wound up saving her whole family.

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Fort Worth 12-year-old helps save family from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon monoxide is called a silent killer for a reason. Many people don't realize they're experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning before it's too late. The gas is colorless and odorless and tends to have a sedating effect that causes people to sleep through the fatal poisoning. Having carbon monoxide detectors is one of the most effective ways to identify the gas before it's too late to get out of the house, but not every home has one.

A little girl in Fort Worth, Texas, experienced a terrifying encounter with the deadly gas, but her quick actions saved her entire family. Jaziyah Parker is being held up as a hero after she realized something was wrong with her family members and called for help.

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In a touching, unscripted moment, Drew Barrymore rushes to comfort a crying audience member

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Drew Barrymore speaks during the FLOWER Beauty launch at Westfield Parramatta on April 13, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.

Drew Barrymore, 48, has been in the public consciousness since she starred as Gertie in 1982’s mega-blockbuster, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. So, it makes sense that many people of a certain age feel as if they’ve grown up with her.

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