Greek tragedy: The latest victims of Greece's economic doldrums: air, water, and public lands. The nation is now treating its mineral resources like junk at a garage sale, selling them cheap to whatever foreign mining interests offer the quickest buck (or euro, as it were). Yes, Greece has debts to pay, but maybe sacrificing its agriculture and ecotourism industries to construct open-pit gold mines isn't the best way to pay them (see "Buried Treasure: the New Global Gold Rush"). Then again, what do we know -- maybe tourists actually prefer Homer's wine-dark sea turning yellow with tailings. New York Times

Breathe uneasy: Air pollution in famously filthy Beijing isn't usually newsworthy ... until, that is, levels of particulate matter become forty times worse than the World Health Organization's standards. To put it another way, on the EPA's Air Quality Index which rates air pollution on a scale of 1 to 500, Beijing would have received a score of 755 over the weekend. Even the Chinese media, which normally censors this sort of negative story, is covering the unhealthy air as though their lives depended on it. American Public Media, The Guardian

It's here!: Climate change has arrived, confirms a draft of the National Climate Assessment, in the form of higher temperatures, erratic rainfall, and rising sea levels and storm surges. And yes, humans are to blame. While the report makes no policy recommendations, it does offer many suggestions on how our country, states, and cities might learn to sleep more safely in the bed that we made. Washington Post

Picking up Shell's tab: Hey, remember that time when one of Shell's drilling rigs broke loose in the Arctic Ocean and ran aground on Kodiak Island? Well, congratulations: If you're a U.S. taxpayer, you'll be footing the bill for the thousands of man-hours that the Coast Guard put into search-and-rescue operations, site assessments, and dealing with that pesky media. Sure, the government will send Shell a bill at some point -- probably many months from now -- but you can bet your bottom dollar that the Coast Guard won't get completely reimbursed. Mother Jones

Keep the lead in: Thanks to Mother Jones' exposé about correlations between environmental lead and crime rates, leaded gasoline has been in the news lately. That's created a lot of bad PR for a British company called Innospec Ltd., the world's last manufacturer of tetraethyl lead (TEL). TEL might be illegal in England -- and basically everywhere else in the world -- but that hasn't stopped Innospec from trying to "maximise the cash flow" by pawning off its brain-damaging chemicals on Yemen, Algeria, and Iraq. The company is even bribing officials to receive contracts. Stay classy, Innospec. The Independent

True Believer's next gig: The state of Delaware has hired Katherine Hayhoe, a climate scientist whom OnEarth profiled last fall (see "True Believer"), to help the state plan for the sea-level rise, extreme weather events, and changing rainfall patterns associated with climate change. For Hayhoe, who has been known to show climate-doubting evangelical Texans the light, getting Delaware's legislators to set aside money for climate adaptation should be a cinch. Delaware News Journal

Tide coming in: If you can't count on anything else in 2013, bank on this: it's gonna be a good year for Britain's nascent tidal power industry. A new analysis says that tidal power could provide up to 20 percent of the United Kingdom's electricity demands, and companies are lining up to cash in. BBC

Snakes on the brain: Aspiring zombie hunters, take note: head down to the Everglades and sign up for the "Python Challenge" if you're looking to hone your undead-killing skills. Florida's public lands are chockfull of invasive snakes, and the preferred method of execution is by -- guess what -- a gunshot to the head. "The training came down to common sense: Drink water, wear sunscreen, don't get bitten by anything and don't shoot anyone." Good advice all around. Huffington Post

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Image: jaaron