A new type of debate for global warming and scientific literacy

Expanding on some ideas introduced in the paper by Albe and Gombert (2012) “Students’ communication, argumentation and knowledge in a citizen’ conference on global warming”, I explore two issues relevant to their work: global warming (GW) as a socioscientific controversy and scientific literacy in regards to climate change science. For the first issue, the definition of GW socioscientific controversy provided in the article raises controversies in both scientific communities and society or social groups concerned by the issue. I review this from two perspectives that can be considered at the extreme ends of a spectrum of perspectives. I then address the role of debates in education about global warming and climate change and suggest a new type of classroom debates to replace those addressing the existence and cause of global warming.