Flanigan's Eco-Logic

In this Convo of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Sean Neman, Founder and CEO of Cal Solar Inc. Cal Solar Inc. proudly delivers reliable, full service renewable energy solutions for new construction, existing buildings, and retrofit projects throughout California. Their experienced in-house team of designers, engineers, and installers is equipped to deliver renewable energy solutions for multifamily, commercial/industrial, and public works projects of any size. To date, they have successfully completed 600+ large-scale renewable energy projects, 200+ prevailing wage projects, and worked within 13 electric utility territories throughout the state. Sean has been an entrepreneur and CEO in the renewables and energy efficiency construction space since 2008. Since founding Cal Solar Inc, Sean has executed $150MM in such projects and has led the company through continuous exponential growth, breaking through the barriers to solar in California, proving that rooftop solar is alive and well in Southern California. He and Ted discuss Cal Solar Inc.'s diverse portfolio of projects. Cal Solar Inc. is a full-service California engineering, procurement, and construction services company, with well over 200 employees. It has teams of in-house engineers, estimators, and state-wide installation crews. Sean shares his EPC service self-performs everything from initial design and engineering to installation and service. They discuss Cal Solar's installation of what at the time was the tallest Solar Water Heating system in the world, atop the 42nd floor of 399 Fremont Street in San Francisco. They also focus on Panel-Level Energy Storage technology that Cal Solar is deploying. Sean concludes by sharing the sentiment with Ted that the "solar coaster" is an interesting one, especially with so many policy changes across the board, but the industry in California is the industry to join. There is still tremendous opportunity and a need to tap this free, renewable resource. 

In EcoNet News, Volume 26, Issue #5, Ted shares his highlights from his trip to the land of enchantment, Sante Fe, New Mexico, to visit his daughter Sierra who is living there. He also highlights the global clothing glut, seaweed clothing, South Korea's solar bike path, streetlight-mounted EV chargers, the first school district in the country in Oakland, CA to have an all-electric school bus fleet, Shenzhen's EV charging network surpassing gas stations, and batteries becoming the largest form of grid-scale storage. 

In this Convo of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Beth Pratt, the Regional Executive Director of the California Regional Center of the National Wildlife Federation. She is a lifelong advocate for wildlife, and has worked in environmental leadership roles for over twenty-five years. She has also spearheaded the #SaveLACougars campaign to collaborate, fund, and build the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, the largest crossing in North America—and potentially the world—to help save a population of mountain lions from extinction. The initiative has raised a half a billion dollars in private funding to advance wildlife crossings across California and the country.She and Ted discuss her background, growing up North of Boston, obtaining a BS/BA from the University of Massachusetts, an MBA from Regis University, earning the LEED AP credential, and training with Vice President Al Gore as part of his Climate Reality Leadership Corps. Before joining the Federation in 2011, she worked on sustainability, green building, and climate change programs for Xanterra Parks & Resorts in Yellowstone as its Director of Sustainability. Under her leadership, Yellowstone’s environmental programs received environmental achievement awards from the National Park Service three years in a row. Prior to her role in Yellowstone, she served as the Vice President/CFO for the non-profit Yosemite Association (now Yosemite Conservancy) in Yosemite National Park.Although most of her career has been spent in national parks, she shares that her main conservation priority is now focused on urban wildlife conservation and creating coexistence strategies within urban spaces. She believes that the future of conservation is about the integral link between wildlife and people – and cities are vital to forging those links.Di Angelo Publications just released her new book, I Heart Wildlife: A Guided Activity Journal for Connecting with the Wild World in August, and Heyday Books published When Mountain Lions Are Neighbors in 2016. She has given a TEDx talk about coexisting with wildlife called, “How a Lonely Cougar in Los Angeles Inspired the World,” and is featured in the new documentary, “The Cat that Changed America.” Her book, Yosemite Wildlife, with photographer Robb Hirsch, will be released by the Yosemite Conservancy in 2025.

In this Convo of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Ingrid Malmgren, Senior Policy Director at Plug in America, a nonprofit organization with a mission to accelerate the transition to affordable and accessible plug-in vehicles and charging through education, advocacy, and research. Ingrid has over a decade of experience advancing sustainable energy and transportation electrification through research, utility regulatory proceedings, and legislative advocacy. Before joining Plug In America, she worked as a senior analyst at Cadmus Group, a lobbyist in the Vermont Statehouse, and a transportation policy manager at Vermont Energy Investment Corporation.She and Ted discuss her background, originally from Pennsylvania, and currently based in Vermont since attending graduate school at The University of Vermont. She shares her story of landing in the EV space through her works with energy efficiency and utilities. She found herself running cost benefit analyses of EVs, studying the impact on the grid, cost savings to consumers and drivers, impacts on public health, and social cost of carbon.She and Ted discuss the broader societal benefits of EVs, the history and genesis of Plug in America, and how EVs are a critical component to a sustainable and equitable energy future. Ingrid also shares a broadened view of vehicle grid integration, and her excitement to continue fighting for policy change at Plug In America.

In this Convo of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Jack Groh, Director of Environmental Programs for the National Football League (NFL). He is also the Senior Vice President of Strategy for Legacy Sustainability, an independent consultancy that he and his wife, Susan Groh manage to develop and implement climate mitigation and adaptation strategies around major sporting events.Jack and Susan have been minimizing the environmental impacts of major sports events for 30 years, including the NFL’s major special events. They also designed the sustainability plan for the NCAA College Football championship series. They are widely recognized for the unique and impactful community projects they develop and have consulted on sustainable transportation development, municipal waste diversion, building sustainability, and renewable energy.Ted and Jack discuss his varied background, growing up in Massachusetts, attending UMass Amherst, then going on to teach straight out of college before going back to school for journalism, spending some years TV reporting, before diving into consulting in communications and PR for companies around environmental issues. Since then, Jack and Susan Groh, now based in Warwick, Rhode Island, have been at the forefront of making the NFL and other organizations more environmentally conscious. In 1993, they developed the first environmental initiatives ever implemented at any professional sports league in the United States at Super Bowl XXVIII in Atlanta, Georgia. Their journey began with simple recycling projects during the Super Bowl and evolved into making the game the greenest professional championship in the world. Their efforts extend beyond visible actions, including recycling, food recovery and material repurposing, to making a substantial difference in the environmental and community impact of large events. Through their independent consulting efforts at Legacy Sustainability, they aim to leave each community better than they found it and inspire others to do the same. Some of the green legacy programs they leave behind in every community include planting trees, creating pollinator gardens, habitat restoration, equipment donations and school supply programs, recycling and composting, taking excess food and drink off to local food banks, and using renewable energy and helping organizations get renewable energy certificates. Jack highlights the Miami Coral Reef Project, Super Kids Super Sharing event, and the NFL Green Super Bowl LVIII Program launch. 

In this Convo of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Greg Kats, Founder and CEO of the Smart Surfaces Coalition, a non-profit organization promoting the adoption of urban "smart surfaces" to improve urban livability. He is also a businessman, environmentalist, played substantial roles in developing the clean energy and green building industries, and is a long-time thought leader and investor in the transition to a low carbon economy.Ted and Greg discuss his background, born in Paris, grew up in Connecticut. He attended University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for his BA, and received a joint graduate degree from Princeton in Public Administration, and Stanford in Business Administration, and is a Certified Energy Manager. They mention their time at Rocky Mountain Institute together, then focus on Greg's career and current works.Greg served as Managing Director of Good Energies, a several billion-dollar global clean energy fund investing in low carbon companies, and served for six years as the Director of Financing for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the US Department of Energy. Greg also played a large role in designing and developing LEED, the green building standard. He was hired by the World Bank to guide the creation of a new World Bank green building design standard. He was later hired by the Enterprise community partners to guide development of the first and still leading green design standard focused on low income housing, called Green Communities. Ted highlights Greg being the Founding Chairman of the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP), who built the Protocol into the global energy and water efficiency design and verification standard used in over $100 billion in building upgrades.He founded the Smart Surfaces Coalition in 2019 to slow global warming, redress social inequity, and build urban resilience. It is a powerful collection of 40 leading organizations in urban health, sustainability, equity, architecture, energy, water, and urban policy dedicated to the adoption of “smart surfaces,” a set of technologies that allow cities to better manage sun and rain, save money, and create more livable communities. Smart surface solutions include a strategic combination of reflective roofs and pavements, porous pavements, green roofs, solar photovoltaics (PV), and trees, enabling cities to lower their temperatures despite global warming, as well as create increasingly resilient and livable infrastructure. 

In EcoNet News, Volume 26, Issue #4, Ted acknowledges the global awareness of the severity of climate change, and its connection to human rights. He highlights the landmark ruling by the European Court, which faulted Switzerland for violating human rights provisions, and affirmed that the climate crisis is a human rights crisis. He goes on to share the exciting news of the Earth Day launch of construction of the Brightline, a high-speed rail line that will run from Los Angeles to Las Vegas!He also highlights green ammonia becoming a major ingredient of the clean energy revolution, 31 countries passing the EV tipping point, GETs or Grid Enhancing Technologies, 90% of all new car sales in Norway being fully electric vehicles, instant EV rebates in the US, and Finland's massive thermal energy storage. 

In this episode of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted and co-host, Russell Sturm, speak with Jesse Moore, CEO and Co-Founder at M-KOPA, the world leader of affordable "pay-as-you-go" financial services for low-income customers based in Africa. Since commercial launch in 2012, M-KOPA has connected, provided, and served over 3 million customers to affordable off-grid distributed solar systems and connectivity solutions, including lighting, charging, radio, TVs, fridges, and smartphones. Russell starts with his introduction, exploring and explaining the impressive evolution of the off-grid solar industry over the past fifteen years, which has emerged for the first time to provide power to 2 billion people who do not have access to reliable and modern energy. He then introduces Jesse to the conversation, and describes M-KOPA as a sustainable and profitable company which continues to innovate for the financially excluded.Ted and Jesse then dive into his works, first discussing his background, originally from Toronto, Canada. He holds an MBA from Oxford University (Skoll Scholar) and a BA from the University of North Carolina (Morehead Scholar). Early in his career, with a desire to drive social impact, Jesse worked with the international development charity CARE. His work then transitioned from a strictly humanitarian focus to enterprise solutions, spurred specifically by an interest in advancing cellular connectivity in Africa via M-PESA, a virtual payment service launched by Vodafone and Safaricom in 2007. M-PESA offered a playbook for what would become M-KOPA, which was founded in 2010 with an idea of combining the power of digital micropayments with GSM connectivity to make life-enhancing assets more accessible. Jesse has since overseen the company’s growth from startup to over 2,000 employees and 20,000 sales agents. M-KOPA currently has offices in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, UK and Hong Kong. The company has received numerous awards for its innovation, impact and scale: including winning the prestigious Zayed Future Energy Prize, making the coveted MIT Technology Review 50 Smartest Companies list, and being listed by Fortune Magazine as one of the Top 50 Companies Changing the World. Investors in M-KOPA include Generation Investment Management, CDC Group and Standard Bank, as well as esteemed entrepreneurs such as Virgin Founder Sir Richard Branson and AOL founder Steve Case.As a leader in empowering homes and small businesses through connected technology, Jesse is representative of an industry of entrepreneurs that sees the only way to address these fundamental problems within commercial markets at scale is with companies that are responsive to customer needs instead of donor biases, and are able to innovate, drive prices down, and continuously provide products that people need.

In this Earth Day Special of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Mike Rufo, Musician and Energy / Climate Policy Consultant and Activist. Mike has had a long and distinguished career working with energy efficiency and modelling, as well as resource planning and cost effectiveness evaluations. He is now semi-retired, focusing on his career in singing-songwriting, with three albums since 2012 and another recently released. Ted and Mike discuss his background, sharing that he had an untraditional childhood, landing in the flats of Hollywood in the early 70s when he was 12. He shares that there was a moment while living in Hollywood when he became aware of what smog was and how car-heavy LA was. The use of gas and nonrenewable resources didn't make sense to him, which led him down an environmental path in his studies and career.Ted and Mike then dive into his pivot from 30 years in virtually all aspects of energy resource consulting and management, to music and activism. Music, for him, became a vessel to be environmentally active. He shares that he is a Board Member of Music Declares (Climate) Emergency-US, which comprises a group of artists, music industry professionals and organizations that stand together to declare a climate and ecological emergency, and call for an immediate governmental response to reverse climate change. They believe in the power of music to promote the cultural change needed to create a better future.Mike recorded his first album in 2012, and recently released his new album, “living is," debuting a single from the album, “The Reckoning” which is his ode to Earth, live on the podcast for Earth Day! 

In this episode of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Jacquelyn Francis, Founder and Executive Director of the Global Warming Mitigation Project (GWMP). GWMP contributes to decarbonizing the planet by identifying innovative climate leaders and deploying resources to advance solutions. It comprises three interconnected programs that work together to address the funding, capacity building, and visibility challenges that global changemakers face as they scale their science-based solutions to decarbonize the planet: The Keeling Curve Prize, The Constellations Fellowship, and The Climate Impact Conduit.GWMP's signature program is the Keeling Curve Prize, which awards $50,000 annually to each of 10 global projects that demonstrate the ability to reduce, replace, or remove greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Since 2018, GWMP has awarded $1.75M to 60 nonprofits, for-profits, and startups, vetted more than 1,100 viable solutions, and grown one of the largest networks of global warming mitigators in the world. The projects that GWMP has awarded are currently projected to reduce 3.27 gigatons of CO2e emissions this year alone.Ted and Jacquelyn discuss her background, growing up in Aspen, Colorado. While attending John Hopkins University for a Master’s program in Energy Policy and Climate, she decided that the solution to decarbonizing the planet was to find, fund, and elevate climate leaders and entrepreneurs around the world. This realization led Jacquelyn to create the Keeling Curve Prize and the Global Warming Mitigation Project (GWMP) in the fall of 2017, and a commitment to investing her skills, expertise, and resources to help transition all of humanity to a future beyond fossil fuels. She uses scientific rigor, mathematics and pragmatism as tenants for climate forward-thinking leadership.She shares some of her favorite impact stories with Ted, highlighting creativity from the younger generation finding new ways to make solutions that are smart and effective. She also discusses upcoming events, running programs, and a new tool within their database - carbon abatement portfolios - an idea that comes from the voluntary carbon markets. She concludes by emphasizing that solutions to the energy transition and emission abatement already exist, and are just waiting to be scaled up.

In this episode of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Captain Liz Clark, surfer, sailor, environmentalist and author of SWELL, a memoir published by Patagonia. The upcoming paperback edition of SWELL is scheduled for release on May 14th chronicling her voyage sailing 20,000 nautical miles of ocean. The book shares tales of sailing in high seas, of solitude and surprises, but also of hardship and difficulties she faced both within herself and in the outside world, ultimately finding a connection to the earth and commitment to living in harmony with it. Liz and Ted discuss her background, growing up in San Diego on the water. Her father was an avid sailor, taking their family on a 5,000-mile, 6-month cruise in Mexico on their sailboat. At fifteen, her love of the ocean and natural athletic inclination led her to try surfing, and eventually started competing, surfing in private contests and for the UCSB surf team while studying at UC Santa Barbara.Liz enjoyed the exploratory part of surfing, looking for remote waves, and has since spent the last 9 years exploring the Pacific, searching for and surfing numerous incredible reef passes as well as working on local environmental projects and presenting talks in schools across Polynesia to raise awareness of pollution and conservation issues. Her aim is not only to promote environmental awareness in the places that she visits, but also to do so on a larger scale by documenting her voyage and sharing it through her writing and photography in the hope that it will inspire others to live out their passions and connect with both themselves and the planet. Liz is now based in French Polynesia, where she started writing SWELL, and has dropped the hook more permanently in Tahiti with her partner to expand her activism work, resulting in the creation of A Ti’a Matairea, a non-profit organization in French Polynesia working for environmental protection, animal welfare, and youth empowerment. There is more sailing in her future, but for now, she is enjoying giving back to the planet and learning how to positively impact local environmental issues.

In this episode of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Margaret Cederoth, Director of Planning and Sustainability at California High-Speed Rail Authority. She is an urban planner with more than two decades of global sustainable infrastructure delivery, rail system planning, design, and construction, and land use/ transportation planning experience. Margaret's expertise is with complex transportation infrastructure projects, as well as international urban development throughout North Africa and the Middle East.Ted and Margaret discuss her background, growing up in Illinois, studying Eastern History, and later earning a Master of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She went on to do some graduate work in Tunisia, focused on social housing and the nexus to transportation.Margaret's project management experience includes managing a diverse team of experts as well as managing planning and sustainability tasks for major projects, such as the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Chicago's Sustainable Urban Infrastructure Guidelines, Anacostia Waterfront Transportation Infrastructure Master Plan, and the Lower Georgia Avenue Streetscape Project. She was appointed by Governor Newsom in 2019 to be the Director of Planning and Sustainability at California High-Speed Rail. Her duties include policy development and implementation, station and station area planning, greenhouse gas emissions inventory, tracking, and offsets, renewable energy planning, sustainable design, and district-scale sustainability approaches.As an AICP (American Institute of Certified Planners) urban planner and Envision Sustainability Professional, she previously led the sustainability division for the Authority as a consultant. Cederoth oversaw corporate sustainability initiatives for WSP USA, the Authority’s Rail Delivery Partner. That work included a commitment to carbon neutral operations and the development of training and tools for implementing sustainability approaches on a range of infrastructure projects.

In EcoNet News, Volume 26, Issue #3, Ted highlights data from 2023 showing that there are 1.5 billion people worldwide that are vegetarians. He goes on to highlight Ohio' solar milestone, the 2024 World Happiness Report, a new study that finds dancing to be the best form of exercise to combat depression, Shell closing 1,000 gas stations, the final quarter of 2023 ramping up battery storage, the strongest ever auto pollution standards issued by the U.S. EPA, electrifying heavy duty trucks, and Environmental Social Governance (ESG). Ted also shares big news: Feedstock has listed Flanigan’s Eco-Logic as one of the Top 15 Sustainability Podcasts in California!

In this episode of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Paul Gipe, an author, advocate, and analyst of the renewable energy industry. Paul is a world renowned wind power expert, and has written extensively about the subject for the past four decades, receiving numerous awards for his efforts. Gipe has lectured before groups from Patagonia to Puglia, from Tasmania to Toronto, and from Halifax to Husum. He has spoken to audiences as large as 10,000 and as small as a private presentation for Vice President Al Gore. He is also passionate about electric vehicles and writes about his experience driving EVs.Through his website, Gipe is well known for his frank appraisal of the promise and pitfalls of wind energy, including his stinging critiques of internet wonders and the hustlers and charlatans who promote them. His most recent book, Wind Energy for the Rest of Us, is Gipe’s seventh book on wind energy. In it, he debunks novel wind turbines, rebukes revisionist historians, and argues that renewable energy is too important to be left to electric utilities.Gipe’s interest in wind energy grew out of his wish to limit the environmental effects of conventional energy sources, particularly those of coal and nuclear power. He contributed to the seven-year struggle for passage of the National Surface Mining Act, which regulates the strip mining of coal in the United States. As part of that effort, Gipe co-authored Surface Mining, Energy, and the Environment and was invited to the White House by President Jimmy Carter for the signing ceremony.He and Ted discuss the wind energy industry at large, highlighting technological advancements in design, commercial vs. residential uses, offshore "floaters" vs. on land turbines, and solar vs. wind cost efficiency. They also share their love for driving EVs. 

In this episode of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Dr. Rick Brown, Founder and Chairman of the Board at TerraVerde Energy, an extraordinarily accomplished independent clean energy consulting firm representing school districts, public agencies, and commercial enterprises. TerraVerde supports their clients with the design and deployment of clean energy projects and programs that reduce costs, increase resiliency, and enhance sustainability. Dr. Brown founded TerraVerde in 2009 and served as CEO through December 2019. Since TerraVerde's founding, the consulting firm has supported the successful implementation of close to $650 million worth of distributed solar PV and battery energy storage systems for which they have provided independent technical and financial feasibility analyses, project development support, project implementation management, and continue to provide ongoing asset management services for a portfolio of nearly 400 solar and battery energy storage systems.He and Ted discuss his involvement in California legislation regarding clean energy and numerous regulatory proceedings impacting the growth of solar, storage and other distributed energy resources. He played a central role in the passage of SB 585, California legislation that provided $200 million in funding for the California Solar Initiative rebate program and in budget legislation directing the expenditure of $1.5 billion in Proposition 39 funds.Since retiring as CEO, Dr. Brown has spent a lot of time on advocacy work, through a number of different venues. He continues to work on the State's solar policy, specifically net energy metering, and market and capital innovations in support of decarbonizing and increasing the resilience of the energy and building sectors.

In this episode of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Dr. Fereidoon P. Sioshansi, President of Menlo Energy Economics, a consulting firm based in San Francisco, California. With over 35 years of experience in the electric power sector, he advises clients on strategies to respond to the rapid transformation of the energy sector, including utilities, energy intensive industry, innovators, start-ups and companies engaged in the electricity delivery supply chain, and regulators and policy makers.He is also a prolific author in the energy space, and the editor and publisher of EEnergy Informer, a monthly newsletter with international circulation, now in its 29th year of continuous publication.He and Ted discuss his decades of experience, working in more than 3 dozen countries, covering all aspects of the electricity power sector. They reminisce on their Demand Side Management (DSM) works at EPRI, and discuss the transformation, new framework, and structuring within the utility industry, specifically integrating distributed energy resources into the grid.They also highlight his newsletter and 15 books, including his 16th, forthcoming book on electrification, stating that the way to climate salvation is to electrify everything and anything that we possibly can.

In this episode of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, father-daughter duo, Ted and Sierra Flanigan conclude the clean energy crash course mini series focusing on Ted's international travels. Part 3 focuses on Ted's work and tours in the Philippines, Sweden, Germany, Spain, and concluding with Iceland. They dive into the context for each trip, and discuss lessons learned.Ted begins with his work in the Philippines as part of the Efficient Lighting Initiative to accelerate transitions to more efficient lighting in developing countries. There was a big focus on rural electrification and advancing more efficient technologies. He then hops over to Sweden for four consecutive summers with The Energy Coalition. The purpose of these trips were exchanges with utility and city officials from California, notably from Irvine and Santa Monica, and vice versa, as well as with students through the PEAK program. Ted highlights the district heating systems and comfort utility rates.Sierra then asks Ted about his solar tours in Germany and Spain. He starts with Germany, unpacking the reason why Germany is seen as a global leader in solar, and sharing the story of the most lucrative feed-in tariff (FIT) ever implemented. He then moves on to Spain, highlighting the difference with their FIT program, which was not quite as rich, but really moving the market at the time.They conclude with the tour of Iceland's geothermal facility, and Ted shares how impressed he was by the sheer amount of geothermal energy and electricity as a result, that the country started converting cars to hydrogen fuel with the excess to decarbonize their transportation sector.Ted and Sierra wrap the three-part series, highlighting how rich the world is with renewables, and how much can be learned when travelling with a mission and broadening horizons.

In EcoNet News, Volume 26, Issue #2, Ted highlights the surge in utility-scale solar across the US. He also shares California's progress towards its 100% clean energy target, with the State’s utilities on track with the 2025 goal. Ted goes on to highlight BMW's hydrogen pilot fleet, Taos's electric snow cat, the Super Bowl's environmental milestone - powered entirely by renewable energy, floating offshore wind updates and the Jones Act, and all-electric seagliders.

In this episode of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, father-daughter duo, Ted and Sierra Flanigan host the clean energy crash course mini series focusing on Ted's international travels.They build on the first episode of the three-part series, which focused on Ted's travels in the 80s. In part 2, they focus on the 90s. Ted begins with his work with the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) and his involvement in the Urban Carbon Reduction Project. The idea was for local environmental movements to take form, which was then taken internationally. Ted shares stories from Ankara, Turkey, Helsinki, Finland, and Omiya, Japan.They then move on to The Results Center, discussing the genesis and players involved, the importance of the era, and the legacy of it. The idea was to write case studies of the most successful programs and approaches, starting with North America, and then looking broadly and out of the country. Ted and his team wrote 128 case studies, including a series of case studies on Europe. Sierra and Ted conclude with the linking of ideas around climate action to a universal way of connecting and growing relationships and strengthening bonds, underscoring the value of meeting people where they are, creating greater visibility around the numbers, opening channels of communication, and cross-cultural collaborations that Ted facilitated and shed light on. 

In this episode of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, father-daughter duo, Ted and Sierra Flanigan host the clean energy crash course mini series focusing on Ted's international travels.They introduce the mini series, which will highlight 40 years of international trips, which gave him global perspective on energy issues. This led to 40 years of reporting on these issues and opening people's eyes to energy innovations and technologies all over the world. They will highlight  his experiences from travels to countries including Canada, The Soviet Union, France, Singapore, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Philippines, Thailand, China, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Iceland, and South Korea.In part 1, Ted begins with the lessons learned from his fulfilling experiences abroad that have enriched his work life. Throughout all his years of international travel, his biggest takeaway is that 98% of the people in the world are good people, and he's constantly been reassured through human connection and learning from different cultures. The first trip that Ted and Sierra reminisce on is his works in Canada in the James Bay area around 1985 and the huge hydro Quebec Electric projects there. He also discusses his works in Ontario and working for the City of Toronto as it sought soft path solutions.The second trip they covered was Moscow at the Global Forum on Sustainable Development in 1988. Ted was asked to attend as a sustainability expert to help guide the forum on behalf of Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI).Ted concludes with a favorite trip, an experience which was also afforded to him via RMI, in Singapore, and thanks to Lee Eng Lock, that culminated with a side trip into the jungles of Malaysia and the South China Sea. Sierra thanks him for taking a trip down memory lane, and reiterates the idea of being open and receptive to what other cultures have to teach us - which is a lot.