Meet the Climate Change Candidate Saying “We're All Going to Die”

Should you measure campaign slogans by their level of honesty, Mike Beitiks’ would win out pretty quickly. “We’re all going to die,” says the California-based candidate for U.S. Senate. And it’s true! We’re all going to die, indeed. Such is the nature of mortality. But Beitiks is less concerned with the natural course of human life than he is with the perilous outcomes of climate change. He’s running his campaign on the promise that he’ll put all his energy and resources towards the goal of lowering CO2 emissions and saving the environment.

“So much of politics is saturated with morality, talking about individual liberty—things I don’t belittle in any sense—but I think the climate crisis is something as real as Pearl Harbor, and is being treated as debatable as something that’s a matter of private morality,” said Beitiks in an interview with The Awl. “This is an issue of survival and fact-based rational action rather than a time for nuanced moral debate.”

Beitiks, who is a lawyer when he is not running for Senate, acknowledges the “absurdity” of his campaign, but says that there needs to be extremity on the Left to match the extremity of those on the Right who continue to deny the realities of global warming. Athough he doubts he’ll get on the ballot, he says that should he win, he’ll do everything in his power to fufill his campaign promises, which include stopping volcanoes and making January the “stay home with your family and don’t move around too much” month. Where do I cast my vote?