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🌱 Think Like a Woman to Solve the Climate Crisis, Says Top Scientist 💡👩‍🔬

Discover how climate scientist Friederike Otto urges us to solve the climate crisis by embracing justice, care—and thinking like a woman.

Author

Green Glow
April 06, 2025

In the ongoing global conversation about climate change, we often hear about emissions targets, renewable energy, and carbon offsets. But what if we’ve been looking at the crisis from the wrong angle? According to Friederike Otto — a trailblazing climate scientist at Imperial College London — we need to start thinking like women to truly confront the climate emergency.

Otto, known for her pioneering work in attribution science, argues that climate change isn’t just an environmental or scientific issue. It’s a crisis of justice, health, and power — and it’s shaped by long-standing systems of inequality, colonialism, and patriarchy.

“If the story were told from a woman’s perspective, it would be more about health, safety, and especially the safety of our children,” she says. “It’s not just about carbon.”

Table of Contents

What Is Attribution Science — and Why It Matters

Otto co-leads the World Weather Attribution project, a scientific initiative that calculates, in near-real-time, the extent to which human-driven climate change influences extreme weather events. It’s a discipline that’s flipping climate science on its head.

Traditionally, scientists have been hesitant to link specific events — like a deadly heatwave or a devastating hurricane — to climate change. But Otto and her colleagues have shown that we can draw that connection, in some cases conclusively.

For instance, the record-breaking 2021 heatwave in the Pacific Northwest, which killed over 800 people, “would not have been possible without human-induced climate change,” Otto’s team concluded.

By establishing this causal link, attribution science becomes more than data — it becomes a tool for accountability.

Holding the Real Culprits Accountable

Once you can prove that a heatwave or flood was made worse — or even caused — by burning fossil fuels, the question naturally follows: who’s responsible?

Otto doesn’t shy away from naming names. She points to companies like Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Saudi Aramco — fossil fuel giants who continue to profit from an industry that is destabilizing the planet.

“They are in a business that kills people and destroys lives and livelihoods,” Otto says.

And this is where her work gets political. By mapping the chain of causality — from emissions to disasters to deaths — Otto is helping to support a growing wave of climate litigation. Lawsuits are increasingly being filed against oil companies for knowingly contributing to the climate crisis while misleading the public.

Climate Change Is About Inequality

Perhaps the most radical — and necessary — part of Otto’s message is that climate change doesn’t hurt everyone equally. The people who suffer the most are often those who did the least to cause the crisis.

  • Poor communities without proper insulation are the first to die in heatwaves.

  • Subsistence farmers lose their livelihoods during droughts.

  • Women, children, and the elderly are disproportionately impacted by floods, displacement, and food insecurity.

Otto also draws attention to colonial legacies in infrastructure and policymaking. She cites the example of Pakistan’s devastating 2022 floods. The outdated and ineffective water system — built by British colonial engineers — was never meant to serve the needs of local people.

“It was built to look impressive, not to work,” she explains.

In this sense, the climate crisis is not just environmental — it’s historical, political, and deeply systemic.

Why "Thinking Like a Woman" Matters

So what does Otto mean when she says we need to “think like a woman” to solve the climate crisis?

She’s not saying women are inherently better leaders or scientists. But she does argue that a feminine perspective often brings different priorities: care, safety, public health, long-term thinking, and the well-being of future generations.

These priorities have often been excluded from mainstream climate policy, which tends to favor technocratic fixes — like carbon markets and electric vehicles — over social solutions like healthcare access, education, and resilient local economies.

“If we looked at the crisis as one of care and protection, rather than just emissions and megawatts, we might get different outcomes,” she says.

This perspective echoes the legacies of environmental pioneers like Rachel Carson, who exposed the dangers of DDT and inspired generations of women-led environmental activism.

Science Isn’t Voodoo — It’s a Moral Compass

Otto is also keenly aware of the growing skepticism toward science, especially in the U.S. and parts of Europe. But she holds firm in the belief that science, when combined with ethics and empathy, can guide us forward.

“Science can be wrong — and that’s actually its strength,” she explains. “It changes when we learn something new.”

What’s not acceptable, she argues, is the distortion of science to serve political or corporate interests — or to deny its power outright.

Conclusion

The dominant narrative around climate change — that it’s a problem of too much CO₂ and not enough green tech — is dangerously narrow. Friederike Otto’s work and worldview challenge us to broaden our understanding.

Climate change is about who has power, who bears the costs, and whose voices are heard. It’s about reframing the problem from a purely technical challenge to a profoundly human one.

And maybe, just maybe, it starts by thinking like a woman.

FAQs

Who is Friederike Otto?

Friederike Otto is a climate scientist at Imperial College London and co-leader of the World Weather Attribution project. She's known for her work in attribution science and for linking climate change impacts to global inequality and justice.

What does “thinking like a woman” mean in this context?

Otto uses the phrase to suggest that solving the climate crisis requires a shift in values—toward care, safety, health, and justice—traits often underrepresented in the traditionally male-dominated climate discourse.

What is attribution science?

Attribution science analyzes how much human-induced climate change contributes to extreme weather events. Otto’s team can sometimes conclusively link events like heatwaves or floods directly to fossil fuel emissions.

Why does Otto believe fossil fuel companies should be held accountable?

Because scientific evidence increasingly shows that their products directly cause deadly weather events, and they’ve profited while denying or downplaying the damage.

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