Neil deGrasse Tyson: Believe In Science Behind Eclipse? Believe Climate Change, Too

Neil deGrasse Tyson loves all things space related, he’s the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York and one of America’s most well-known astrophysicists. Tyson is a believer in science. On Thursday he took to Twitter to use his knowledge to advocate for climate change.

He used the upcoming eclipse as a means of putting climate change in perspective for those who may not quite believe in it or its impacts. To his 8.4 million followers, he wrote: “Odd. No one is in denial of America’s Aug 21 total solar eclipse. Like Climate Change, methods & tools of science predict it.”

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The Aug. 21 total solar eclipse that is expected to cast a shadow over 14 states across the country throughout the day is going to be quite the show. That eclipse could only be predicted using scientific methods to measure and track the Earth, moon and sun’s positions in space.

Tyson’s tweet suggest that if someone believes in the science behind the eclipse and tracking it but they denied that climate change existed they would be contradicting themselves.

This isn’t his first time taking to social media to advocate for science. In April, Tyson posted a video to Facebook in which he said he was tired of Americans denying science. “I don't remember any time where people were standing in denial of what science was," he said in the video.

Climate change and warming is widely accepted to be related to human activity. Based on studies published in scientific journals, more than 97 percent of actively publishing climate scientists agree on this point, according to NASA. In addition to a widely-held research consensus, organizations worldwide and governments have acknowledged that climate change is a threat that needs addressing.

In opposition to the agreement among experts, President Donald Trump and members of his administration have denied the role of human activity in climate change and any urgency of addressing it. President Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement that served as a commitment to lowering emissions and helping mitigate the impact of climate change.

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To detect the upcoming eclipse researchers use detailed information about the moon lumpy shape as well as the elevation of Earth at different points, which can be detected using satellite instruments. Some of this science, like elevation instruments, are also used to detect symptoms of climate change, like rising sea levels.

Old Eclipse maps used to assume the Earth was the same elevation everywhere, sea level, it also assumed the moon was a perfect sphere, something that has since changed and made the science around eclipse predictions more accurate. So Tyson has a point, relying on information about the eclipse but denying information about climate change is a bit “odd.”