Original version

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

The Forum

Documentaries

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

The programme that explains the present by exploring the past

The programme that explains the present by exploring the past.

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

The Forum: A forgotten founder of climate science: Eunice Newton Foote

A forgotten founder of climate science: Eunice Newton Foote

22/09/2022 GMT

BBC World Service - The Forum, A forgotten founder of climate science: Eunice Newton Foote

The first person to link CO2 with global warming, and why she vanished from history

The first person to link CO2 with global warming, and why she vanished from history.

Eunice Newton Foote was the first person to suggest that an atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide would lead to a warmer planet, but her discovery was largely ignored and her name disappeared for more than 150 years. She fell into such obscurity that there’s no known picture of her.

Bridget Kendall explores the life of this American scientist and inventor and asks why her ground-breaking research, carried out in the 1850s, was overlooked for so long. Discrimination against women, especially in the sciences, was a major reason, but might a transatlantic power struggle and even a case of intellectual theft have played their parts? 

Eunice was also one of the founding members of the women’s rights movement in the United States – we discuss how she helped launch a campaign that would eventually win women the right to vote.

Plus, the story of how her work was recently re-discovered, and the quest to ensure her name gains greater recognition.

For more on Eunice and other key figures in the history of climate change visit https://bbc.in/3QXkiru

Producer: Simon Tulett

Contributors:

John Perlin, a research scholar in the department of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, who is working on what’s thought to be the first biography of Eunice Newton Foote;  

Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, a recently retired professor of history from the University of Minnesota, USA, and expert on women and gender in the history of science;

Roland Jackson, a historian of nineteenth century science, honorary research Fellow in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at University College London, and author of ‘The Ascent of John Tyndall’;

Ray Sorenson, retired petroleum geologist, Oklahoma, USA;

Judith Wellman, professor emerita at the State University of New York at Oswego, USA. 

(Picture: Smoke billowing from chimneys at the coal-fired Bełchatów Power Station, Poland, in 2009. Credit: Peter Andrews/Reuters).

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Forum

A forgotten founder of climate science: Eunice Newton Foote

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

About BBC World Service