The Global Optimum

Mark Kirk -- the only US Senator living in Lake County -- shot off his mouth last week. Kirk told a reporter at the E&E Daily that global warming isn't caused by greenhouse gas emissions. To prove it, he cited Greenland as evidence, stating that Greenland was green back in the day of Leif Erikson, which coincided with a period of exceptional planetary warmth known as the global optimum.

Kirk now is backpedaling from these comments. The Chicago Tribune reports that ...

After criticism from environmental groups, Sen. Mark Kirk said Thursday that climate change is real and human activity contributes to it.
Sen. Kirk clarifies view on climate change

Kirk did not backtrack on his claim that Greenland was green in the time of Lief Erikson, some 1,000 years ago -- during a period known as the global optimum, a time of climate warming. For the record, Greenland has been covered by an ice sheet for 110,000 years. Additionally, global optimum is not a term of climate science, and it is unknown what Kirk meant by it.

Your LakeCountyEye will keep you apprised as further developments warrant. Until then, Operatives are challenged to match-up the individuals pictured below with a recent quotation of theirs:

Quotable Notables: Who Said It?
Grandpa Simpson	"Like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Gimme five bees for a quarter, you'd say. Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war."
Mark Kirk	"We had the previous warming period, which was called the global optimum, and the best way to talk about that is when Leif Erickson went west from his home, he discovered a landmass that he called Greenland, because it was," Kirk said after Senate Republicans' first weekly caucus lunch. "And that was called the global optimum, because the planet was much warmer. By calling Greenland 'green land,' we know that the climate has been changing pretty regularly within recorded memory."