A parable to illustrate that the same set of data can be compatible with both alleged global warming and cooling simultaneously, ergo, proving that both sides in this nonsensical debate are correct.
“Let all the world know that the power of kings is empty and worthless, and there is no king worthy of the name save Him by whose will heaven, earth and the sea obey eternal laws.” – King Cnut.
In the recently highly anticipated encyclical on the environment, Pope Francis alludes to a conjectured ecological crisis involving global warming.
Pope Francis is not the only pontiff to have addressed the controversial subject of global warming. Legend has it that, for a brief period during the Dark Ages, the Roman Catholic Church was led by a certain Pope Calefacio. His predecessor, the now-emeritus Pope Gelatio, had retired on grounds of poor health.
Calefacio, a chemist by training, was a firm believer in the theory of bovoprogenic global warming—a kind of hell on earth produced by the flatulent emissions of livestock. His conviction was reinforced on the very day of his inauguration, when a spell of climatic instability descended. Some theologians attributed the turmoil to diabolical influence.
Throughout Gelatio’s reign the temperature had remained a steady (16°T). Yet during a period of particularly inclement weather, Calefacio recorded readings of (36°T) and (0°T). Ignoring the cautions of statisticians, he averaged the two values to obtain (18°T) and promptly declared a warming of (2°T).
Risking charges of climate-denial heresy, Gelatio objected that the scale (degrees T) was based on unreliable tree-ring proxies. He proposed instead the excellent ice beer brewed by his own monastic order as a superior thermometric substance, with temperatures measured in the corresponding scale (degrees G). Proxy measurements showed the two scales were related by a square-root function—a transformation that, at least, preserved the thermodynamic ordering.
Under this new scale, the old average of (16°T) became (4°G), while the two recent readings converted to (6^°G) and (0°G), yielding a new mean of only (3°G. Gelatio therefore concluded that the data actually indicated a cooling of 1°G.
In this way the wise Gelatio had inadvertently rediscovered a fundamental truth: the arithmetic mean of a random variable is not preserved under nonlinear transformations.
No records survive of how this theological-thermodynamic schism was resolved, nor whether denialism was ever declared heretical. Indeed, serious scholars now regard the entire episode as a myth, noting the implausibly large chronological gap between the two popes and their earliest mention in texts. Nevertheless, theories of bovoprogenic warming remain in vogue today—notwithstanding the Russian philosopher Soloviev’s warning that the Antichrist would appear as an ecologist, ecumenist, and pacifist.
Like its planetary counterpart, this fable shows how the same pair of measurements can be interpreted as either warming or cooling if a non linear change of temperature scale is used.
by Philip Pennance
References
- Philip Pennance, Concerning the Measurability of a Global Mean Surface Temperature, Revised March 30, 2026.
- Philip Pennance, Physical Applications of the Stevens’ Classification of Random Variables, March 2006 – Revised April 3, 2026
