The collection of papers in this special issue of Social Epistemology grew out of a debate

scienti � c evidence which proves that we should limit greenhouse gas emissions because of climate change?’. A full transcript of the proceedings appears in this issue, along with reprints of the scienti � c slides and charts presented by the advocates in the debate. The debate between Hansen and Michaels can be seen as a speci � c site of contestation embedded within a larger controversy on climate change, one that is charged with the argumentative energy of many participants, including citizens, climate scientists, economists, botanists, international relations scholars, sociologists, policy-makers and a host of others whose backgrounds burst the boundaries of these neat categories. As this climate change controversy includes such a wide range of di ¶ erent stakeholders, the controversy covers rich ground such as disputes over the proper scope of scienti � c authority; the role of social, political, economic and rhetorical factors in the manufacture of scienti � c knowledge; the public face of science in controversy; and the intersection between science and policy-making. Several contributions to this special issue (e.g. O’Donnell, Shackley, Wander and Jaehne) explore how the 1998 SPF featuring Hansen and Michaels relates to this broader controversy on climate change. Much of our motivation to create this special issue stemmed from our desire to stimulate conversation and critical re � ection on the climate change issue, surely one of the most interesting and signi � cant controversies of our time. However, the decision to solicit and organize the contributions featured in this volume was also driven by our desire to contribute to ongoing academic debates about the research trajectories o