Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate claims global warming is happening because 'the Earth moves closer to the sun every year'

Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Scott Wagner offered up some truly innovative explanations for global warming at an event for natural gas advocates in Harrisburg on Tuesday. Wagner, a Republican state senator, suggested at one point during his keynote address that humans' "warm bodies" could be responsible for the Earth's rising temperatures. "We have more people. You know, humans have warm bodies," Wagner said. "So is heat coming off?"

Later, after admitting he hadn't "been in a science class in a long time," Wagner hypothesized that global warming could also be due to the Earth's rotation. "...[T]he Earth moves closer to the sun every year — you know, the rotation of the Earth," Wagner said. "We're moving closer to the sun."

If Wagner were to return to a science class, he might be surprised to discover that the Earth's rotation happens daily, not annually, and that the Earth's proximity to the sun doesn't necessarily result in warmer temperatures. In fact, Huffington Post noted "the United States and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere experience winter when the Earth's yearly orbit brings it closest to the sun."

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Wagner later clarified in a statement issued by his spokeswoman that he does believe in climate change and that he thinks "some of that change is certainly manmade." He did not, however, mention scientists' main culprit for global warming: greenhouse gases.