1. From the Boston Globe.

The research, published this week in Nature, drew on global satellite imagery and more than 400,000 sample counts from forests around the world in order to estimate that there are currently 3.04 trillion trees on earth. This is 750 percent more than the previous best estimate, which was 400 billion.

Pointer from Tyler Cowen. Even though the estimate of the number of trees may be much higher, I gather that this does not necessarily change estimates of the total biomass of trees. Otherwise, I would say that the inputs to climate models might need some adjustment.

2. From Katherine Mangu-Ward.

The Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation is just one organization among many that claim that more than 1 million birds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die each year from eating or getting entangled in plastic.

Morris and Seasholes reconstructed an elaborate game of statistical telephone to source this figure back to a study funded by the Canadian government that tracked loss of marine animals in Newfoundland as a result of incidental catch and entanglement in fishing gear from 1981 to 1984. Importantly, this three-decade-old study had nothing to do with plastic bags at all.

Overall, the five-cent bag tax appears to be a case of regulatory miscalculation.