In 2024, Benjamin Dziobek founded Climate Revolution Action Network (CRAN), which has grown to become New Jersey’s largest Gen Z political advocacy group.

CRAN is led by a team of young activists, urging the state to take action and address climate change and a range of environmental policy issues.

For Dziobek, environmental activism and organizing are personal.

“Growing up, every Sunday morning going to a state park with my dad,” said Dziobek. “We would just go crazy in the stream.” 

Those early experiences, he added, “instilled a sense of reverence of nature for me,” shaping his path forward.

CRAN advocates for issues like renewable energy, environmental justice and affordability. It mobilizes citizens to testify before the state government, and lobbies for legislation that would require fossil fuel companies to help cover the costs of climate-related damage in New Jersey.

The organization has also been working hand-in-hand with other environmental groups and showing up at public meetings to make their voices heard.

Social media is a key component of CRAN’s organizing strategies. The group has over 42k followers on TikTok and nearly 18k followers on Instagram.

In February, the group leveraged its social media to organize hundreds of people to show up at a city council meeting in New Brunswick to a proposed data center. A video of Dziobek running out of the council meeting yelling “They cancelled it! They cancelled it!” went viral.

Dziobek said young people have every reason to be energized, arguing that many are already facing economic pressures tied to the climate and housing costs that older generations did not encounter.

“Yes, be fired up,” said Dziobek. “We want to make polluters pay New Jersey and pass the Climate Superfund Act to fund a more affordable future.”