Rediscovering Eunice Newton Foote the woman who saw climate change coming
- Editorial Team SDG13
- 13 hours ago
- 3 min read
When I first learned about Eunice Newton Foote, I was struck by the sheer simplicity and power of her insight. In 1856, she proposed something that now seems almost obvious, changing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could change the Earth’s temperature. Yet, at the time, her idea was revolutionary, and it came from a woman in an era when women were not expected, or often even allowed, to participate in serious scientific inquiry.
Foote’s experiment was deceptively straightforward. She filled glass cylinders with different gases and placed them under sunlight, measuring how quickly they warmed. What she found was astonishing, carbon dioxide and water vapour trapped more heat than ordinary air. From that, she concluded that if our planet’s atmosphere contained more of these gases, the temperature would rise. It was the first clear articulation of what we now call the greenhouse effect.
I often think about what it must have felt like to make such a discovery in 1856. Her findings were presented not by her, but by Joseph Henry, a prominent scientist of the day. He acknowledged her work but didn’t grasp, or perhaps didn’t want to grasp, how profound it really was. Just three years later, John Tyndall would conduct similar experiments in Britain and become credited as the father of climate science. Foote’s name was largely erased from the story for more than a century.
Only in recent years has her work resurfaced. Historians and climate scientists are now giving her the recognition she deserves. When I read that modern measurements show atmospheric CO₂ concentrations have exceeded 420 parts per million, the highest in hundreds of thousands of years, I cannot help but think of Foote’s glass cylinders, quietly proving that very principle long before our machines could.
The silence surrounding women’s voices
Foote’s story also opens a deeper conversation about the systemic exclusion of women in science. In the mid-nineteenth century, scientific societies were almost entirely male spaces. Women could rarely publish under their own names, attend conferences, or hold academic positions. Their curiosity was often tolerated only within domestic limits, as an extension of household education rather than as a pursuit of discovery.
Eunice Foote was not alone. Other brilliant minds such as Mary Somerville and Ada Lovelace faced similar barriers, their intellect confined to private correspondence or small circles of enlightened peers. Even when women’s ideas emerged in public, they were often filtered through the voices of men who acted as their intermediaries. The result was a silence that lasted for generations, where entire strands of thought were buried under the weight of social expectation.
What strikes me is that Foote’s erasure was not accidental, it was structural. It reflected a system where women’s insights could be acknowledged only if they came with a male signature attached. Henry presented her paper, but it was his authority that made it acceptable to the scientific establishment, not her evidence. This dynamic, in many ways, shaped how history remembered her.
Today, we like to believe that progress has corrected this imbalance, yet the pattern still lingers. Studies show that women remain underrepresented in climate science leadership roles, with less than 30 per cent of global researchers identifying as female. Their papers are still cited less frequently, and their discoveries often reach recognition only after delay.
Foote’s story reminds me that scientific truth can survive suppression, but only if it is eventually given voice. Her work is a quiet rebellion against exclusion, a message from the past urging us to listen differently in the present.
As we confront a rapidly warming planet, 2024 ranking among the hottest years on record, Foote’s legacy feels more urgent than ever. Her experiment reminds me that the science has been clear for nearly two centuries. What we lack is not knowledge, but collective action. Her spirit aligns perfectly with the sustainable development goals for climate action and gender equality in science, urging us to connect understanding with responsibility.
I encourage readers to explore her rediscovered work through the Smithsonian Institution archives and the continuing research available via NASA Climate Change. Eunice Newton Foote may have lived in the nineteenth century, but her message speaks powerfully to the twenty-first, we shape the climate by what we put into the air, and by whom we choose to listen to.
Image credits and more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_Newton_Foote
