“THEY CANCELLED IT”

CRAN Part 1: A conversation with founder Ben Dziobek

The Climate Revolution Action Network of New Jersey has grabbed the attention of people all over the country for their huge success fighting AI data centers in the densest state in the US. CRAN Executive Director Ben Dziobek gets specific about how they are winning by empowering their Gen Z members and volunteers to form creative alliances to fight big tech right where they grew up and live.  

Message us on Instagram @thehumpod to get connected in your state or country. Send us stories and key dates coming up so we can share them out.

Learn more about CRAN on their website or social media, read their template resolution, and check out the “they cancelled it” video.

Read Saul’s recent Op Ed on data center resistance with Astra Taylor in the Guardian. 

The Hum is produced in partnership with Rowhome Productions. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey, Rohome Productions. You're listening to The Hung, a new podcast where we're sharing stories from people across the U.S. who are fighting the march of AI and data centers into every aspect of our lives. I'm Saul Levin, your host. Last week, I chatted with Michigan political hopefuls Abdul Saeed and William Lawrence. Both candidates have unexpected leads in primary polls after taking principled stances against giveaways to AI data centers. Our conversation is an educational exercise in how data center resistance is turning into political power. This week's conversation is with Gen Z activist Ben Jobeck, the founder and executive director of Climate Revolution Action Network, or CRAN, of New Jersey. This is the first in a two-part miniseries on Crayon, who have helped win multiple local moratoria, fought successfully to cancel several AI data center projects, and gone viral repeatedly in the process. Ben, who refers to New York City as a Jersey suburb, takes us behind the scenes on how Crayon has drawn national attention for achieving huge and rapid success with limited resources. Ben, thanks so much for chatting. Welcome to the program, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Thank you for having me. We are so grateful to be doing this work and to have some of it uh elevated to a little bit of a higher level.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

All right, so let's talk about this. Why is a group of Gen Z activists and young people in New Jersey so focused on data center build-out and AI right now?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

First thing I would say is because I've been actually getting that question a lot, is like, what why is it young people leading this charge? I believe that it's going to be young people leading this charge nationally and around the world because we're interacting with AI all the time. It's on our social media feeds, it's in all of our email inboxes. We're the ones who are first maybe understanding ChatGBT and all of that stuff, right? So for us, it's just like so hyper-prevalent in all of our lives that it's what we need to organize on, right? Like, and we're also just seeing a large proliferation across the state. We're not seeing our older generations catch up, they're still calling it an emerging technology as if it's not the largest sector in the entire world in our economy right now. It's here, and young people are usually very quick to address things, especially like new technology. So we're just like very into it, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

What stands out to me is like young people use, you know, ChatGPT or Claude or familiar with AI and data centers, but have no control over like where a data center is getting placed. So the like prevalence in your life offset with the control is kind of a remarkable thing for anyone to experience. 100%. There's frustration.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

There's so much frustration there, right? And then when we show up to these meetings and have sort of organizing conversations with whether that be a local elected official or other folks, like there's this obvious need to prove ourselves because we're young adults fighting this, but also like, oh, you live with your mom, like you don't pay energy bills and stuff like that. It's like, no, well, regardless, like uh we are going to be paying for this. The infrastructure costs will be passed on to us for the rest of our lives for this, uh, the grid build out and all of that. So, and you're right, there is this power imbalance, right? It's the largest corporations in the world versus the, you know, a super young uh generation who's just scrappy, who doesn't have anything at all, especially when it comes to money. So it's a very David versus Goliath situation. And I actually think that influences more young people to want to join the fight because they're like, come on, let me go up against something big here, right? Let me show what I'm worth. And we're so happy to sort of channel that that energy.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

So let's talk about that energy in New Jersey specifically. I mean, this is a state where I understand there's more than 80 data centers either proposed or or constructed. Could you just like paint us a little bit of a picture of the data center build-out and AI development in the state of New Jersey?

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Yeah. Let me give a quick breakdown, right? New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the in the nation, right? We got a lot of people in a tiny little space. But we also have the confluence of pretty much every sort of environmental issue or environmental space. Uh we have almost 200 miles worth of coastline. I think it's like fifth or sixth for the longest coastline, right? So we get huge impacts from climate change. We, especially in South Jersey, we have massive rolling rural communities where it's just flat land, right? We have one of the largest uh national preserves uh in the country with the Pinelands National Preserve, and it takes up almost like 50% of the state. And then we just have we're at the heart of the nation, New York and DC, and we're right between it. And for at least data centers, uh, there's a significant connection there because the New York Stock Exchange is offloading all of their infrastructure into northern New Jersey. So you're right, you said 80, it's 81 data centers that have been built in New Jersey that are in operation. There's a lot more that are being proposed, there's a lot more that we'll continue to beat. But for us, we know that like the issue is here. It's not coming, right? So we needed to like figure out over the past few months how we're gonna approach local moratoriums because New Jersey has really strict land use laws. We call it home rule, where uh local municipalities control pretty much all permitting, none of that is really done on the state level. So there needs to be local campaigns and an understanding that we have very little to no laws on the books when it comes to data centers at the state level, and also the understanding that the federal government is just throwing shit at a wall and it doesn't really matter, right? So whether they're saying that our grid system over here has to provide clean energy, um, it's unenforceable. So we know that we have to do things in New Jersey specifically and not rely on anyone else.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

It's a remarkable story about Jersey. I want to talk about the the famous moment, a video from a few weeks ago that's been viewed millions and millions of times on social media, pictures you running around the corner of a building and yelling, they canceled it. And, you know, everyone's in the comments like, yo, this is Ben's Paul Revere moment. Like, who's the who's the man with a mustache who's so happy? You know, all kinds of enthusiastic commentary. And then you you run into a crowd of dozens, if not hundreds, of people who are all absolutely screaming and chanting and saying, you know, let's get these billionaires who won't even tell us their names or their companies out of town. What was happening there? And and how did you guys stop that data center from being built? So this was rapid.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

When I say rapid, I mean rapid. Okay. We found out about this data center about five days before the council meeting. Five days. And this this happened about a month ago. What we were able to do is sort of we had a local reporter uh let us know that the uh plan for this one development site had changed rapidly and that the a park that was supposed to be built directly next to an elementary school was going to be turned into about a 30,000 square foot data center, right? Ridiculous. So we were able to put out some information on social media, um, do some viral videos, you know, not as viral as tens of millions of views, but right. So we connected with the local community and sort of channeled them in and provided them information. We got there early, about an hour early. There was already a line out the door. We reached capacity within the building. I was someone who, you know, I talked to the police and I was like, I'm gonna be floating inside and out because I want to make sure that people outside are getting the information that's happening inside in the council meeting. The council meeting, like it went for about an hour before it even started. And then the council came out. They went through the first four items of the agenda, and then they basically said that the data center portion of the project will be pulled and the park will be put back in. That is because there were about 300 people who showed up who were fired up, screaming, you could hear the chance inside City Hall from outside, because I went outside and I was just like starring people up, you know, and providing them the facts and getting them fired up. But everyone there understood. I wasn't explaining anything new that the largest corporations in the world were coming in to take advantage of the community. Those residents of New Brunswick knew that their water bills doubled within the last year, right? Because of infrastructure upgrades, just capital infrastructure projects, not related to AI, but because we weren't, you know, paying for the infrastructure for water. So if we increase the amount of usage, their bill goes up and they have to pay for it. And then it also happens to be on Rutgers campus, basically. New Brunswick is basically Rutgers University's campus. So we have tons of young people show up. So that first question leads back to this is they showed up because they were already activated by their energy bill, by their water bill, and by the issue it itself, right? So I freaking ran out of the building, and as soon as I heard it was canceled, and I started screaming, and my camera guy was running with me, and I just got into it, right? I felt like the ever I gave like a speech right after, and everyone was just like, wow, this guy's going off. But I'm like, this is actually the campaign that we've been building for four months in the background, and we just happened to defeat a data center without releasing it, and it felt like the moment to like acknowledge this work and sort of explain like, fuck big tech, fuck the billionaires who are taking advantage of our communities. And what more perfect of an example is replacing a park next to an elementary school in a black and brown community with a warehouse-size obelisk that doesn't serve the community, right? So it was energetic, and I I'm, you know, maybe I'm responsible for some of that, but the people power was in the building, the people power was outside the building, and that was undeniable for the city council. And what we're seeing around the state is when we can mimic that, I'm not gonna say that there's gonna be 300 people showing up, but we when we mimic that, we put so much stress on the council, especially when it's not just about firing back at the project, but about building community, not data centers, right? That's the campaign name, right? But genuinely building a communal unit to fight these things on the ground. Politicians are scared when 300 people come together for a common cause anywhere, and we will use that strength to push local moratoriums and to stop projects all across the city.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

It's remarkable. Tell me a little bit more about this because we have 300 people showing up at a city council meeting about this data center, right? But we also had a reporter who said, I'm gonna let people know what's going on. And one of the things that stands out to me about this story is how little transparency there is in these data center projects because the tech companies know that people don't want their utility bills to go up. They don't want this random warehouse next to their kids' elementary school instead of a park. And so as soon as a reporter shed light on this, 300 people come out, you guys are out there organizing. Turns out you guys have already been thinking about and concerned about data centers in the state of New Jersey. Rucker students are like, what the hell is going on? This is our campus. So tell me about the role of information flow and reporters and what what role they can play in this process. Yeah, and I think young people need to utilize connection to reporters.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

It's not that hard. It's not that hard. The reason why News 12 New Jersey picked it up and some local papers is because we put a quick press release out to them and they they reached out, right? And we had two viral videos beforehand on like TikTok. And genuinely, when you're doing the narrative storytelling and driving the the the vision, maybe a reporter is gonna see that and wanna do an interview and then that compounds. But what I will say is the information is a core part of this whole thing that we're doing, right? It is almost impossible to find any information about these data centers. Big tech thrives in darkness, and that's why we as organizers have to shine light on these things. I'm not saying it's easy, I'm not saying it doesn't take time, but we spent four months collecting information on every single data center that is in New Jersey, from the ownership structure to how much energy is being used, to how much water is being used. Are they mentioning AI? Do they have diesel generators on site? Has there been uh complaints from citizens, right? That information is quite literally in six trillion different places all over, right? Water and energy, most of them aren't really reporting, especially the water, right? So if we are to like actually fight these things, people need to come with more than a moral argument, unfortunately. And that's where organizers come in to try to like centralize and coordinate some of this information and then get it out to residents. But then that also is where we link in state-level policy, right? We are pushing two or three bills on water and energy information, right? One, there should be information that is going to the Department of Environmental Protection and the Bureau of Public Utilities about how much energy is being used and how much water is being used. We cannot regulate these companies if we don't have the data, right? They're not required to submit that information to the state right now. What the heck?

unknown 14:50

Right?

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Um, so we want to change that, and we have strong support in the legislature to do exactly that. So that's critical, but also I think the ownership structure is really important, right? We were able to find out that this this facility was being built by AMZAC Capital Management, which is who the would have guessed a private equity firm. Exactly. Um, but uh I they they try to hide all this shit, right? And that's ridiculous. And no one likes private equity. No one, maybe the the the the people who work at the firm.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Um, but but dig into that more. I mean, why is it so important that you figured out that this was a private equity firm? What is the role of private equity in data center build-down? Because we were able to find out that BlackRock was throwing money in, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Like this just like ties into like Vanguard and BlackRock building out so many of the facilities in New Jersey and tying into like the money that's flowing from the New York Stock Exchange to build many of them in New Jersey. So when we were looking through data, these are just like they're delinquent owners, right? Amaz capital management, like actually, like there was like several different capital managements that were like switching out in the proposal days before the council meeting. And that's how private equity works, right? Like, there's no real ownership of projects. So how could you possibly uh make sure there's any community benefit for these things when the people who are involved are really shady? And who the hell knows who they are, right? They had no connection to these communities and no incentive to do anything good, right? Yeah, like it's just bad evil money flowing into New Jersey, and it's very clear for people to say, this is BlackRock, this is a private equity firm. I don't have to explain more, right? Everyone sort of understands that these folks are jacking up our prices for everything. So I can attribute the data center to the villain that I want to connect it to as an organizer. That way I can galvanize people to show up and fight against this, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Okay, so you're talking about the community. Tell me a little bit about who the people are. What was the coalition? I saw that there were a bunch of different groups that turn people out. I mean, who was there?

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Yeah, that's what I love. That's what I love. That's what this is showing here that we can build coalitions, right? Like, so one I will say big kudos to Food and Water Watch, uh, who's going to be working on the ground around the country to be doing this work, right? Um, then we get into local community groups. Once again, super big props to NJ Byrne, uh, who is like a New Brunswick-based organizing uh team. Then I want to get down to the really cool kids, right? This is RU Ruckers University Students for Environmental Action. They changed their name from awareness to action two months ago, and then they immediately defeated the data center. Wow. We work really closely with college groups all across the state. And this college group ended up flyering the campus like the day or two before, letting people know that this was happening and you know, getting people out. And I also want to say, like, the NAACP was there. There were so many New Brunswick residents who show up and speak out at things like this. And that is what's really cool about these projects, is because it's not a partisan issue, it's an up or down issue, right? So when we're in South Jersey footing against these data centers, like I said, there's a lot of farmers. Who is showing up? Farmers, because this is their land being built on, right? Um, this is generations of stewardship of the land, and we're gonna just put a 200,000 square foot, like I said, warehouse size obelisk on it, right? So, like, I think data center organizing is showing us that we can do some serious coalition building across party lines, across sectors.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

So, dude, like what are the lessons? I mean, you guys, you guys with students at Rutgers, with immigrant groups, with local community members and longtime community activists and regular folks who are mad about their utility bills. This coalition comes together and shuts down a data center within a couple days of finding it out about it, and then now they're gonna build a park instead next to the elementary school. So many people want the result that you all had. So, what's what's your lesson and and your advice to folks who want to repeat something? What do you take away? One weekend, we can do this.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

There are insurmountable odds, and that's very clear for all of us organizers around the country. But it shows when you do the proper communication and the proper coalition building and the proper research, and not just like pardon me for saying this, but just like showing up and complaining about something morally that we can like fight against these things. And I say that because we also I think this is a conversation that like us as data center organizers around the country need to have is like this stuff is happening rapidly, it is hard to keep up with every single one that is being built. We have to acknowledge that we are going to lose fights, we're gonna lose a lot of them. But how can we be forward thinking with projects that do not have the permits necessary yet, right? Especially if we want to stop something in its tracks. When there's facilities that are already built, I think asking for transparency and information is really important. But I also don't want organizers to waste their time on something and not commit to organizing where we can, when we can, right? With a lot of them that are built, I think there's a new strategy that organizers need to take. Um, because expecting a moratorium or a shutdown for two maybe large facilities that are right next to each other or that are in operation that's kind of a huge ask, right? But can we put a really big municipal tax on these facilities if they're making all the money and then spend that on the town, right? Can we uh force massive strong sound ordinances in to really hamper the ability for the facility to run, especially in these cases that the diesel backup generators are being loud? So, like I know that was like a wild, you know, long running answer to that, but to say like We can win, but we also have to acknowledge the circumstances for each and every data center because they're all going to be different, right? Obviously, let's do the community building, let's do the organizing, let's do the research, let's do the coalition building, but acknowledge the situation at hand very clearly because it's not in your best interest to either start making, I'm not gonna say making up stuff, but making up stuff or hoping in a direction that like maybe doesn't make sense or is not feasible. We do have to acknowledge that these guys are the largest corporations in the world, they have all the lawyers and whatnot in the world, right? So we have to find the strategic ends that organizers can actually impact change. And I believe it's possible, right? Like in South Jersey, just two, three days ago, we got a data center pulled completely. A hyperscale. What happened?

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Walk me through it. I heard about this one too.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Community pressure again, right? But we came in at the right time, right? It's really hard when these proposals are already done and not only are the shovels in the ground, but the cement is laid, right? But like if you can come in at the right time and then really, like I said, build out that coalition on the ground and build out a unit of 200, 300 people that are gonna put consistent pressure on the council members and mayor, then you got something cooking, right? I just got an email back from another town in South Jersey that is going to be putting up a ban moratorium that we worked on because we had community pressure show up and we just wouldn't let them move on from the agenda item.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Simply as that. Get into the specifics there. Like, what do you mean you wouldn't let them move on?

SPEAKER_01 23:48

I mean, they wanted to be done with this meeting. They wanted to move on to like the next item, and people just kept coming up. And it wasn't like it was just like you're not answering our question. You're you can we're gonna stay here all night. We're not leaving the room. We're not gonna like allow you to move on to the next agenda item because we're gonna make enough noise that you can't really move on, right? Not just noise, but like genuinely, you know, in these meetings that you cannot move on to the next one. I mean, that's it, though.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

I mean, this is visceral for people. It's like talk about an affordability crisis, talk about a crisis of privacy and control by big tech people are like when I, you know, take my hit kids home from school, there's cameras everywhere, I bring them home and they turn on the lights and it costs me like 20 bucks already. You know, then they're playing on games on their phone, and you know, Meta or Facebook or whoever is like combining that data and actually not censoring out, you know, pornographic or other materials that I don't want my kids to see. I mean, people are viscerally like, what the hell is going on? And so what you're saying is they they're translating that into these council meetings. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

And I think that's like really important. And I think as organizers, like I said over and over, like I think these moral arguments are really strong. I really do. Like, and they're they're real, right? But how can we then like take a moral argument and then move it through the process of things that a council would be able to like address and react to on a local level? Like I said, like I'm pissed about the sound, and I hate the fact that these diesel backup generators are running and polluting. Well, what can a local municipality do? Can they pass a sound ordinance? Right? When you're showing up to these council meetings, you should have your moratorium already done. Send every person to the dais up with a moratorium, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:47

What do you mean with the moratorium?

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Like with the piece of paper, print it out. I got this for you. Every say, you know, say what you want to say, I got this for you. You don't you you say you don't know because all of these towns are like, I don't know how to ban a data center. Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

You're like, we did the technical part for you, we did your homework, you can add it for free.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

But so don't I I think that's a big piece too. Like, do the technical part for them. They're never gonna do the technical part, or they're gonna drag their feet, and that could compound to they drag their feet so long that the maybe planning board process for permitting already happened. Right? So I I like obviously like people want to show up and fight a data center. I really do encourage though organizers to have a subset of resources ready and available to target the specific areas that you want to target. Because then you don't just sound like you're complaining, then you you're there with resources and facts, right? When a community shows up unified in solidarity, and the the communication tools and maybe a talking point was already handed out, so everyone's really tight and together, that does something significant.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

So if this is an issue that's popping up everywhere and everyone's mad about it, what's happening in the state legislature? I mean, the legislature has been uh in session as I understand it. There's active consideration of different pieces of not only just data center-specific legislation, the physical infrastructure, but AI legislation more broadly. What is sort of standing out to you right now? What are you guys tracking and pushing for in at the state level in New Jersey?

SPEAKER_01 27:32

So I'm gonna like quickly walk through some of these bills that we want to go into and sort of walk through why, right? Like, so we have one make data centers build their own clean energy. That goes back to the comment that I said before is that we're not gonna defeat all these data centers, right? We're not. There's AD already built and functioning, right? I have to acknowledge that the reality that we're living in. How can I solve some of these solutions, right? Or problems with a solution. Um if we make data centers build their own clean energy and specifically build their own clean energy on site, what do we get rid of? The diesel backup generators because we have enough clean energy and we have a battery system to be able to power the data center when the solar is not going. We remove one variable from the situation. But what we also do is make sure that infrastructure costs for these upgrades are not being passed on to regular people. The biggest thing that people see on their uh energy bills, especially in New Jersey, is that delivery fee. It's like an additional fee. That is infrastructure costs. The energy race that is happening right now across the country is being caused by data centers with 60% of the increased capacity in the recent years and that price jack coming directly from data centers, especially in the PGAM grid system, which is 12 states and DC. So, what can we do? We can mandate 100% clean energy to be built for data centers and crypto mines. Uh, the industry association has no clue about any of this. They literally were like, I don't even know what crypto mines are. Great. I'm gonna go have some conversations with legislators and show that I'm unknowledgeable and that push this bill through. That's genuinely how it goes, right? The next two are very similar. Of one, it requires data centers to submit uh water and energy usage reports. So biannually, they have to show how much water they're using and how much energy they're using. There's another bill that would require the Department of Environmental Protection to study the long and short-term effects of water usage by large-scale AI data centers, which tracks with that last one, which basically allows those two bills allow the state to then regulate through the executive branch because we have the data that was, you know, pushed by a legislative agenda, right? To basically say that the legislature directed us to collect this information to be able to respond to the situation. And once we have the data in our year or so, we're then able to put regulations on the books finally to address some of these things. Boom. Right? We have another bill that would slow down the process. So that's where the state planning commission comes in, right? Can we have these proposals specifically for data centers have to go through a state planning commission review process um to uh make sure it meets the master plan and state plan guidelines? Boom, slows down the process, gives organizers more time to work, fleshes out more information in the public space, right? Especially through the state, right? And this bill also excludes data centers from re receiving economic development subsidies, gotta be state level review, and the state is gonna stop financing this because we gave out a few hundred million dollars in the last year to an industry that does not mute the money, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:17

So I mean, do these things have a chance of passing then?

SPEAKER_01 31:20

I mean I guarantee you that all of these are gonna pass. If the Senate and Assembly is posting videos of everyone testifying and like making it a big stink, it is going to pass, right? They did not address any of the energy usage problems last year, not a single one, because the our governor was leaving, right? They have to figure this out now. And the pressure from the video and the things that are happening in local communities are stressing these legislators out. I I would talk to them on Monday. They're all coming up to me being like, uh, what am I supposed to do? Tell me what I'm supposed to do, right? But there is significant pressure to get this done on a lot of these things. I don't usually come out and be very hopeful about legislation, but I am hopeful about this because I see the difference of how legislators are acting. Because if you don't pass one of these laws, maybe in the next year or so, oh boy, your local community is gonna be gunning for you just like they're gunned for the local councilman. And I think these legislators are starting to realize that. I want to make sure that our attorney general and our Department of Labor is able to go after the worst companies in the world, big tech, for the things that they are doing wrong. And if it's gonna be young people who are pushing these things because we understand the situation that we're going to be coming up against in our lives, then it's gonna be young people who do it.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

I love it. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, thank you so much. Ben Jobick is the executive director of Climate Revolution Action Network of New Jersey, a prominent Gen Z activist group that has already led the way with community members all over New Jersey to stopping multiple data center projects, probably more to come. Thanks, Ben. Thank you. That was my conversation with Ben Jobek from the Jersey Shore. The fight in the Garden State continues. Ben and his friends are leaning into their New Jersey pride as they fight for statewide legislation to build on their wins. We'll hear more from Cran leaders next week. If you want to propose a moratorium where you live, Cran created a Madlib style template ordinance you can customize. Find that in our show notes. You've been listening to The Hum. We're publishing new episodes weekly, so if you like what you heard, please download and subscribe and write a review about how the Hum changed your life forever. Message us on Instagram at The HumPot to get connected to organizers in your state or country. The Hum is produced in partnership with Rohome Productions. Rohome's creative director is Alex Lewis. Their executive producer is John Myers. Our producer is Emily Rizzo. The Hum's video producer is Adultrehan, and we partner with the Center for Nonviolent Conflict Research. I'm Saul Levin, your host and banjo journeyman. Thanks for listening and see you next Tuesday.