Corryn Freeman:

Hey, you all. My name is Corryn Freeman. I am the executive director of Future Coalition and welcome back to another episode of the Future Coalition Podcast. Today I have two phenomenal guests here with me that are near and dear to my heart because both of their organizations are fiscally sponsored by Future Coalition, a part of our Future Incubator project. Today we have Zanagee Artis. Zanagee Artis is a passionate environmental activist and co-founder of the youth-led climate organization, Zero Hour. He has been instrumental in organizing climate marches and advocating for environmental justice and policy change on a global scale. With a background in government and environmental studies from Brown University, Zanagee brings a wealth of knowledge and a powerful voice to the climate movement. We also have Sunny Gandhi, a dedicated advocate for ethical AI and the vice president of political affairs at Encode Justice. A youth-led organization committed to ensuring that artificial intelligence is developed and used in ways that promote justice and equity.

With a strong background in technology and social activism, Sunny has been instrumental in mobilizing young people to advocate for responsible AI policies and practices. Sunny and Zanagee, welcome to the podcast. So let’s go ahead and get started. I want to hear a little bit more about who the both of you are. Get a little bit into your backgrounds. So we know that both of your organizations focus on climate change and AI regulation respectively. These issue areas have specific relevance to youth as they have potential to impact young people and future generations the most. I’d love to hear more about your stories and what got you involved in advocacy in this way?

Zanagee Artis:

I grew up on the coast of Connecticut and the ocean has always been close to my heart, but I did not know really anything about climate change until I met other people who were talking about it. I thought that plastic was the biggest problem that we could address, and that as individuals we should recycle, we should do cleanups. But in the summer of 2017, I met a girl from Seattle, Washington who told me about wildfires. And how wildfires are connected to burning of fossil fuels and that these wildfires were destroying local air quality. They were keeping people inside all summer long and they were endangering people’s livelihoods.

And I had never before that recognized climate change as an issue that affected people. I thought climate change was an issue for the Arctic, for these places where people are not inhabiting large populations. So that’s why I started working in climate justice and that girl from Seattle was Jamie Margolin, who is co-founder of Zero Hour. And I joined her and our other founders to lead the Youth Climate March. Because we wanted to have a voice to call for climate action at a time when our federal government was disbanding environmental policy, was revoking it all across the country. And meanwhile we’re seeing these wildfires and seeing climate disasters all across the country that are affecting people. And as young people, we would inherit a climate devastated by fossil fuels, if action wasn’t taken. So we decided to march and then we’ve been leading work since then.

Corryn Freeman:

Sunny, same for you. What sparked your interest in AI ethics and justice, and how did you become involved with Encode Justice?

Sunny Gandhi:

So when it came time to go to college, I was totally doing computer science. That’s just a hundred percent my thing, there’s no question about it. I went off to college and started taking more and more courses in this, started thinking about it more, talking about it more with people. And I think this is slowly where you started to see the kind of one-off things that would happen that would almost make you raise your eyebrows about, “Okay, what’s going on here?” This really compounded when I realized that my entire school curriculum has no mandatory ethics course at all. It’s straight about technical stuff.

And I just started to think about how this was a larger problem of, we need to start thinking about designing our tech equitably. We need to start having voices that kind of engage in this area that have a technical background. And can talk about these things on a technical level, but do care about the larger societal impacts. And I stumbled on Encode Justice, literally finding it through a LinkedIn post or something, and now I’ve been working here for the last year and a half or so and it’s been fantastic.

Corryn Freeman:

How would you define AI ethics?

Sunny Gandhi:

I think in the larger sphere of what is AI ethics and what are kind of some, I guess, key principles that we think about a lot? So the first one is obviously having diverse data, making sure to do bias testing, ensuring there’s transparency in systems that kind of explain how their decision-making is made. So you can audit those systems and make sure that they are engaging in fair use, ensuring fairness and accountability. And then also just largely I think building in privacy safeguards to help create systems that protect your data. All these principles encompass the broader realm of what is AI ethics. It’s like how do you design systems that can be just and equitable, on the technical level?

Corryn Freeman:

The training is where the problem happens, because the training comes from perspective. And I am very hopeful that this has just created a deeper sense of awareness in the tech community around bias. And the factual nature that bias inherently exists because we are all individuals with a perspective, with a very unique set of experiences. And I’m super grateful that young people like you Sunny, have taken on the mantle and are asking the question about ethics and how we can make these systems more ethical? As young people are really leading movements and asking the tough questions of industries all over the world to help us all progress. So Zanagee, part of the Zero Hour mission is to empower and amplify the voices of diverse youth in the fight for climate and environmental justice. Why is it important to elevate diverse young people in the climate movement?

Zanagee Artis:

Historically, the environmental movement, the climate movement, the conservation movement in the United States has not been diverse. And what we have seen over the last 60 years is progress for some people and not others. We’ve seen large swaths of our public lands conserved from fossil fuels while people in the Gulf South and people in Alaska, people in Pennsylvania live next to polluted sites still, and that has not changed for decades. And at the same time, we’ve also seen that there is no space for young people to really break into this movement until we founded Zero Hour and more youth-led organizations started. This was a movement that was largely being led by a generation of older White men who had specific priorities for conserving what people considered to be nature. And for us, nature is wherever people are, it’s the places we call home. Our environments are everywhere, and the idea of climate justice is addressing pollution wherever it is and is addressing fossil fuels wherever it is.

And it isn’t just about conserving these places that have rich biodiversity but no human life. And that’s a huge part of climate justice too, biodiversity, but it’s so centered on people. And I think that that’s something that we have not seen become mainstream really until recently. And for young people, it’s the same thing. We want to recreate this movement and have a next-generation of leaders who think about issues in an intersectional way. Think about the intersections between who has higher amounts of income and who has clean air and clean water. Think about housing justice and transit justice as it relates to climate and your ability to be resilient to climate disasters. These are all things that people have to be thinking about, and we can’t do that without diversity in the climate movement.

Corryn Freeman:

So a common thread I see between both of your organizing is a lack of diversity in AI and climate justice, which we see really across the board in social issues, all issues. We see this lack of diversity as a core thematic issue. I would love to hear because Future Coalition, we really believe in an intergenerational pathway to liberation for our organizing. Can you talk about the intergenerational nature of your work or if you take an intergenerational approach and how does that look, how does that manifest itself in your organizing efforts?

Zanagee Artis:

Intergenerational organizing is so core to our work at Zero Hour or none of what we’ve accomplished would be possible without it. When we were leading the Youth Climate March, none of us had led a march before. I was the logistics director and had to learn how to submit permits to three different police agencies here in Washington D.C. And get a stage secured and sound system and all these… There’s a sound permit. And I learned all of that from someone who was experienced organizing in D.C., and we got a mentor for that. And we got a mentor for other things. Someone hosts a lobby day for us who had experienced lobbying. And she’s now still with us, Natalie Mebane, who’s our chief program officer, who has so many years of experience that none of us had.

And it’s so important to have support from people in the movement because otherwise we would have no idea what we’re doing. But I also think it’s really… I want to think expansively about what being a part of the climate movement really means, because there’s so many people who have lend support to Zero Hour who have not actually been climate organizers. It’s people who are donating. It’s foundations who are going out on a limb to fund a youth-led organization that they recognize doesn’t have as much experience as a legacy environmental organization. It’s reporters who are going out of their way to highlight the stories of young people.

And we were on the cover of the New York Times for the Youth Climate March, and that was a huge deal. And it was also a huge deal for that reporter to choose to do that. So yeah, there are people out there in their careers all over the place who have supported a Gen Z youth-led climate movement. And I’ve appreciated it, and continue to appreciate it every day.

Corryn Freeman:

Yes, love it. Big ups to the funders and the older folks who can see the vision. We need you. We appreciate you. Sunny, tap in.

Sunny Gandhi:

Yeah, we also totally think about this all the time. I think especially because AI is kind of new, AI policy is definitely new, thinking about AI ethics. All of that is only been started to talked about in the last couple of years. So I think a lot of the collaboration we do, like Zanagee was saying this and I was like, “Yeah, that’s totally exactly what we do as well.” The mentors, the ability to get advice. There’s a lot of people… The previous fights in the tech policy sphere used to be like social media, and before that it was privacy. And those fights have been being fought for 20, 30 years. So there are veterans of those movements that are… They’re brimming with advice, they have so much insight to give. They are constantly willing to help out because this is just the next big frontier in fighting the tech policy fight, and they’re super willing to do that.

So the kind of perspectives we get from them, the knowledge sharing that they do, the mentorship that they give is totally invaluable. And then also, I think just like longer term, as far as I’m aware, we’re pretty much the only youth organization in the United States that focuses on AI ethics. So we, I think, serve a unique gap… A unique role in filling in this gap between all of the kind of people that are working on it in Silicon Valley, you have the much older people thinking about this in D.C. So I think we really try to emphasize this idea that we’re helping speak for our generation and work with people that are either older or significantly older than us. And how that collaboration should happen and how they should consider our voices uniquely when it comes to framing new types of policy. So I feel like one of the core aspects of our work is this intergenerational… This coming together and basically like, “How can we help bridge that gap?”

Corryn Freeman:

What are some of the current projects that your organizations are working on? Do you have any current campaigns or are there any big wins that you want to amplify for Future Coalition’s audience today?

Sunny Gandhi:

So one of the things that we have just launched is our New York chapter actually just unveiled a project that they’re doing with a couple organizations, to ban the use of facial recognition in New York public schools. I think we’re really excited about that, as a larger project of facial recognition technology has been shown to be full of biases, especially racial biases. And these sorts of systems are being installed at an alarming pace in all sorts of public institutions. So starting the ban at a school level, not making sure that children are constantly surveilled or that that data is being used to feed some larger apparatus, our New York chapter is really focused on that. So I’m really excited about… So that’s been really cool and kind of excited to see where that goes and what kind of legislative action that leads to. Another big issue area that we’ve been focused on a lot is the non-consensual deep fake porn area.

And I think it’s pretty terrifying. This is an issue that disproportionately impacts women who have… Teen women especially who have deep fake porn of them generated completely non-consensually. All it takes is a couple clicks, maybe five bucks and 10 pictures of them that you can scrape off their Instagram. And it is just absolutely terrifying. And it’s honestly really unclear if it’s even illegal right now. So we have been doing a lot of work both on the federal level and at the state level to put penalties on that, make it illegal. And I think this is just one of those areas where it’s like we have a guiding philosophy when we engage in political action, what is meaningful and what is realistic. And I feel like we are really grounded by the what is realistic. There’s a lot of things that are meaningful, but it’s often hard to find things that are politically reasonable.

And I think this is one of those issue areas that’s like, “Man, who are you if you’re against helping stop non-consensual deep fake porn?” You have to be… Who are the enemies? So I think we are really doing a lot of work there to do coalition building. And I think just raising awareness about the issue as a whole, because I think this is an area where we have so much moral high ground, it’s really hard to fight back against us. So I’m really excited both again on the state and federal level to see where that kind of goes. And I think we’re going to have a lot of successes there. So pretty exciting.

Corryn Freeman:

It is exciting. Thanks Sunny. Zanagee, what about you all?

Zanagee Artis:

We’re leading a campaign to stop liquefied natural gas exports or LNG. So if you haven’t heard of LNG, it’s the same kind of gas that you’re using if you have a gas stove, if you pay a gas bill for your utilities. But LNG is liquefied and it liquefies at -259 degrees Fahrenheit to transport it on the vessels to ship it all around the world, to places that pipelines can’t reach. All of these export facilities are being built along the Gulf Coast of the US, and there’s some in other places. But there’s a huge build out of LNG in the Gulf, and it’s a huge problem for the climate because LNG is predominantly made of methane. And methane has 84 times greater greenhouse gas warming potential compared with carbon dioxide over a 20-year timescale, which would devastate the climate. It leaks throughout the value chain, so it leaks when it’s getting fracked, it leaks when it’s piped down to the Gulf.

It also leaks from vessels that are transporting it across the ocean. And some of it is intentional because they have to release it. It’s so highly pressurized that to actually keep it from exploding, they have to release a controlled amount of methane. And normally it’s supposed to be flared. So if you’ve seen the fire plumes coming out from power plants or other facilities, that’s usually methane flaring. But sometimes there’s no flare and it’s just released into the atmosphere.

And there’s so many arguments for why we should be exporting gas around the world because of the war in Russia, because Europe needs more gas. But in reality, this is a huge opportunity to transition to renewable energy. And also the new infrastructure that’s being proposed in the Gulf won’t come online for several years, 5 to 10 years. Depending on if there is litigation, if they actually follow the permits, if there’s climate disasters right along the coast of where they’re building them. And it’s a huge risk. And this gas is worse than coal, with the methane leaks and the energy intensiveness of actually supercooling that to -259 degrees. So we’re fighting against LNG and we’re fighting to stop fossil fuels. In this past January, we got a pause from the Biden administration on all new LNG export licensing, and we’re hoping to make that permanent because there is no need for new LNG infrastructure.

Corryn Freeman:

Big fights ahead for both of you. So how has being a Future Coalition fiscal project supported the work that you do?

Zanagee Artis:

I mean, it’s been huge for us. We’ve been with Future Coalition for several years now, and I think it’s a kind of support that is just crucial for our ability to lead the work that we do. And having access to non-profit status is huge. It allows us to fundraise, it allows us to continue operations, and there’s so many questions that we have that come up all the time that we’re like, “Can we do this?” Like can we do mutual aid, can we support political candidates and do endorsements. Anything that we’ve ever needed, Future Coalition has been there to support. And it’s been really awesome these past several years working with the team.

Sunny Gandhi:

I also kind of echo the same thing. I feel like it’s such a burden sometimes when you’re really interested in doing these kind of social activist things and thinking about, “Okay, what’s the most effective political strategy?” You have all these things that you really want to focus on, and it’s like, “Oh, but now we have to fill out our forms to submit to the IRS and worry about that.” This is not my core competency. This is not what I joined the movement to do. So it’s an incredible thing that we don’t have to worry about any of this paperwork. The hardest thing I have to do is submit reimbursements when I travel basically, and not really worry about anything else. All the logistics and backend and everything is completely coordinated. I know there have been so many situations where we went in and… We couldn’t have done a lot of the work we did if we weren’t officially classified as a (c)(4).

So those kind of backend things that are super necessary to actually get an organization up and running and keep it humming along. It is incredible that we don’t have to think about those things on a daily basis, and that there are people at Future Coalition that are just helping coordinate it all for us. So I think we’re very grateful for it as well that this is just like… It really helps us focus on the actual work that we need to do and not worry about all this other logistical hurdles that everyone else would have to go through.

Zanagee Artis:

Yeah, I think it’s so huge for youth organizations to have this because it’s helpful for organizations structure. When we first started, we led the Youth Climate March. We had no sort of intention initially to build an organization out of it. And after leading that action, we recognized the need to have a space for young people as an organization. Since joining Future Coalition, we have gotten a handbook, a structure for our organization to continue functioning and actually lead it like any other leading nonprofit. Yeah, it’s so important because organization structure really matters for lasting change, and it’s all the behind the scenes things that aren’t the flashy marches or the strikes that actually ensure that organizations last. So super grateful for Future Coalition for that too.

Corryn Freeman:

Like I said earlier, it is an absolute honor to support both of you. And I know that being a piece of movement infrastructure is not sexy at all. However, I compare the work that Future Coalition, specifically the work of Future Incubator to good soil, high quality soil, fertilized soil, nutritious soil. Talented, passionate, young organizers can tap into and just grow exponentially because we are creating a container for you all to really focus on the great work that you all are doing. And you know what, if that means doing the backend budgeting, then that’s exactly what we will do. So I want to hear a little bit about you all as youth movement leaders, and I want you to talk a little bit about what you wish you knew before you started being a youth leader. Is there anything that you wish you would’ve known before you really decided to take on the work that you’re doing? Not saying any regrets, but is there anything for young people who are interested by what you do that you would tell them to look out for to consider?

Zanagee Artis:

I think about this all the time. So when we were planning the Youth Climate March, I thought we were going to… We’re going to march all around the world. We did that. It was great. I thought everything was going to change after that. We were going to come down to Washington, we were going to March, we were going to meet with our elected officials, and boom, climate change solved, done deal. But that is not at all what happened. That’s not at all what happened. And I think that if I had to talk to myself, I would say you’re going to be in it for the long haul. And this is a commitment and movement organizing is sustained and ongoing, and there are forces with power that will always be working against social movements. But yeah, there’s no quick solve and it won’t happen overnight, but you will see wins over time if you stay with it. And yeah, movements take time.

Corryn Freeman:

Can you say that one again? You will see what? What will happen.

Zanagee Artis:

You’ll see wins, you will win. It will take time, but you’ll win.

Corryn Freeman:

It will take time, but you will win. Carry on. Love that. Sunny, how about you?

Sunny Gandhi:

Yeah, I honestly have kind of the same thoughts about just the glacially slow movement of politics and policy. It is like… Not to be that guy, but I feel like especially for our generation used to like quick TikTok feeds and making things happen fast and just like, “Let’s get things going.” It is such a slap to the face like, “Welcome back to reality,” that Congress moves slowly, policy moves slowly. It takes so long and so much energy and political capital and will to get even the smallest things done. And sometimes you come to appreciate it as a feature, not a bug. And then other times you’re like, “This is the worst thing in the world. This is awful.”

So I think learning to kind of… Just understand that that is a real thing and navigating that. And Zanagee you said, you got to be in it for the long run because otherwise… If you think you’re just going to waltz in, and in two months things are just going to happen magically. This is not how the world works, for better or worse. It takes a lot of effort and you got to keep waking up every day to fight the good fight and do it day in and day out. And that’s the only way change happens. So I think that that was like… It took a long time to really understand that message, but now we’re here and now we understand.

Corryn Freeman:

What are your imaginations of the future, particularly with Gen Z at the forefront?

Sunny Gandhi:

This isn’t a given. Systems don’t have to be biased, they don’t have to be discriminatory. They can be good, and they often are. And there are massive cases where awful things happen and they’re unfair and they cause a lot of harms, but that’s not what the world has to be. It’s very reasonable to think that at some point in the future, we won’t have to worry that systems will discriminate, that systems won’t be fair. That there will be accountability and oversight, and that there will be diverse and representative data that feeds into these systems.

So the world that I see is one where every time a system is deployed in the real world, you don’t think about, “Okay, what’s wrong with one? What harm is it going to cause? What problem is it going to cause?” You know that there are adequate safeguards and mitigation measures in place, and that you trust that these systems do actually lead to a better world and don’t perpetuate harms that already exist. I think that world is far away, but it’s out there and it’s possible to get there. And I think that is the utopian vision for when we can finally rest and not worry about what these systems are going to do in the future.

Zanagee Artis:

So this is one of my favorite questions. I love thinking about what vision for the future looks like. And I also want people to think about the future as something that’s not distant, that it’s really… The future is now, you be in the present. Oh, there’s always this call and a response at rallies and what we say, “What do we want?” And everyone responds, “Climate justice.” And then, “When do we want it?” “Now.”

So what does that look like now? What is climate justice now? And it’s so different for everybody. It could look like adaptation from sea level rise in places. It could also look like mitigation of emissions and pollution and other places. It looks like rapid transit and access to nature for everyone. It looks like an end to fossil fuels. It looks like preservation of culture in places like the Arctic in Alaska where people will be displaced by climate change, no matter what happens. If we end fossil fuels today, that warming is locked in still.

So it’s so many different things. And I love this question so much because everyone can envision what that future is for them. But I also think it’s not just about energy transition, it’s about thriving communities and a change to our entire system. And core to our mission at Zero Hour is dismantling systems’ repression. It’s addressing patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism, and racism, which this country, the United States was founded on. And we have an opportunity in our lifetimes to change those systems and to eliminate those systems. And that can look like a lot of things too. And I encourage everyone to be creative and innovative and dream up that dream of what that future could be. Includes access for healthcare, for everybody, access for housing, free college. It could be so many things. And I think that our generation of young people can achieve that. And we have an option. We do not have to stick with the status quo. This is our world to inherit, and it’s our responsibility to pass it along for the next seven generations.

Corryn Freeman:

Gave me chills. I deeply appreciate it, and I know how important the visioning space is to make the future we desire real. So thank you for sharing your visions. And one last question before we let you go. What can our listeners do to support your work and to contribute to the causes that you’re advocating for?

Sunny Gandhi:

Go to encodejustice.org. You can, again, sign up for our newsletter, see the work that we do. Give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, whatever social media platform is of your choosing. And just like and amplify our work. And I think that’s the most beneficial thing anyone can do.

Zanagee Artis:

Yeah. So for Zero Hour, you can head to thisiszerohour.org. We have a petition in our action hub to stop LNG and you can follow us at This is Zero Hour, sign up for our newsletter, all the things, and you can become an organizer with us. You can sign up for our trainings. You can lead climate action in your own community because every movement has to be local, even if we are leading work on a national scale. Thanks.

Corryn Freeman:

Thank you so much Sunny and Zanagee for joining me today on this episode of Future Coalition Podcast. Listeners, if you like what you have heard, please subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. And make sure that you take a look at the work that Sunny and Zanagee are doing at their respective organizations. And if you are a young person with a great idea, leading an organization, but you need a (c)(3) or (c)(4) fiscal sponsorship, you need some status in order to do the work, please check out Future Incubator. Go to futurecoalition.org, click the Future Incubator tab in our About section and apply, apply to the fiscal project of Future Coalition.

Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Future Coalition Podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please be sure to rate and subscribe to Future Coalition’s podcast wherever you get your podcasts. And if you really enjoyed it, leave us a review. Your input helps us improve and reach even more listeners, Future Coalition Podcast is produced by Future Coalition with Moso Haus. Our producers are Dillon St. Bernard and Ivana Tucker. Our editors are Emily Crane and Jessica Hardy. Our theme song is by Warner Meadows, and I’m your host, Corryn Freeman. Until next time, keep imagining the future.