Former Vice President Al Gore shared his optimism about the “shifting momentum” of the climate change debate with about 500 environmental journalists Friday in Madison.“We’re very close to that political tipping point,” Gore said at the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference at the Madison Concourse Hotel. “Never before in human history has a single generation been asked to make such difficult and consequential decisions.”  He said he expects the Senate to pass a carbon emissions reduction bill before a December United Nations conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. The House passed a similar bill in June.

He also said he expects President Barack Obama to attend the Copenhagen conference, which could boost an international framework for emissions reduction. Obama hasn’t announced his plans.

“His optimism isn’t shared by a lot of other folks,” said Tim Wheeler, an environmental reporter for the Baltimore Sun. Gore may have been trying to push politicians to action, Wheeler added.

Gore has been criticized for not publicly debating his position since the release of his 2006 Oscar-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

In what organizers said was a rarity, Gore took half a dozen questions from journalists, including one from Phelim McAleer, an Irish filmmaker who asked Gore to address nine errors in his film identified by a British court in 2007. Gore responded that the court ruling supported the showing of his film in British schools. When McAleer tried to debate further, his microphone was cut off by the moderators.  What was Gore afraid of?

Gore is clearly cleaning up financially and living a lie if he really believes what he has pushed on America. More and more facts prove Gore and his phoney science were wrong.