Review

Eunice Newton Foote dedicated herself to research at home with the little knowledge of biology and chemistry that she had learned at school, achieving excellent results. In 1856, she was the discoverer -in an experiment carried out in her kitchen- of the "Greenhouse Effect", three years before the Irishman John Tyndall, mistakenly considered the discoverer of it.

She was part of the Editorial Committee for the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, the first women's rights convention, and was one of the signers of the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments. Together with four other women, she was part of the group that carried out the preparation of the procedures for their publication. 

Justifications

• Discoverer of the greenhouse effect in an experiment carried out in her kitchen.
• Civil rights activist.
• She signed the Declaration of Seneca Falls (1848) being one of the 86 women who signed the Declaration of Sentiments that they wrote there, and one of the 5 in charge of its publication.
• The first scientist and suffragette who theorized about climate change.
• Her article "Circumstances affecting the heat of the sun's rays" from 1856 shows that carbon dioxide and water vapour heat the atmosphere. It was published after pressure from some journalists who denounced the treatment received at the American Academy for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS).

Biography

American Eunice Newton Foote (1819-1888) was the first scientist to theorize that even modest increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentration could cause significant global warming.

Since then, this relationship between CO₂ and climate has become one of the key tenets of modern meteorology, the greenhouse effect, and climate science. However, no one recognized that Foote was the first to make this discovery, because she was a woman who was also one of the founders of the Seneca Falls Convention, the first assembly in which the rights of women were debated in 1848.

Thus, in addition to being a feminist, Eunice Foote must go down in history as the first scientist to theorize about climate change. Of the 16 physics papers published by American women in the 19th century, only two were published before 1889, and both were written by Eunice Foote. 

The symposium on her Science Knows No Gender: In Search of Eunice Foote Who 162 Years Ago Discovered the Principal Cause of Global Warming took place in May 2018 at the University of California Santa Barbara, United States.

The Conversation, (retrieved on 9/3/2022), https://theconversation.com/eunice-foote-la-primera-cientifica-y-sufragista-que-teorizo-sobre-el-cambio-climatico-125970.

Works

Bibliography

• Peinado Lorca, Manuel (2019). “Eunice Foote, la primera científica (y sufragista) que teorizó sobre el cambio climático”. The Conversation https://theconversation.com/eunice-foote-la-primera-cientifica-y-sufragista-que-teorizo-sobre-el-cambio-climatico-125970  (retrieved on 9/3/2022).
• Macho, Marta (2020). “Eunice Newton Foote climatóloga”, Mujeres conciencia (retrieved on 9/3/2022), https://mujeresconciencia.com/2020/07/17/eunice-newton-foote-climatologa/.
• (2019). “La científica olvidada y el cambio climático". Eunice Newton Foot: Unsung Heroes of science, (retrieved on 9/03/2022), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_vjSCpVBiw.

Didactic approach

She should be included in various subjects, such as:

• Ethical values
• Biology and geology
• Mathematics
• Physics and chemistry

Documents