The Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor called a young woman “young and naive”—and earned applause from his crowd of supporters—for asking if his stance that “body heat” causes climate change was influenced by thousands of dollars in contributions from the fossil fuel industry.
In video from a town hall event in Glenside, PA, on Wednesday, state Senator Scott Wagner took a question from a woman later identified as a volunteer with Sunrise Movement, a climate change advocacy group.
The woman said her name was Rose, age 18, and asked if Wagner’s citing “body heat” from humans as a source of climate change—he told a reporter last March that “We have more people. You know, humans have warm bodies. So is heat coming off?”—has anything to do “with the $200,000 that you have taken from the fossil fuel industry?”
Wagner dodged the question, instead responding: “Rose, you know I appreciate you being here. You’re 18 years old, you’re a little young and naive.” Most of the audience responded by laughing and applauding the old man joke.
Aside from his batshit remarks about the environment—and the $203,000 in contributions he received from the oil and gas industry, according to campaign finance records—Wagner doesn’t get better from there. He’s a pro-Donald Trump friend of Wall Street who supports drilling on public lands, opposes sanctuary cities and local gun control efforts, and once took it upon himself to physically confiscate a camera from a researcher. Sitting Governor Tom Wolf is still leading in the polls, but all bets are basically off in 2018.