Why are they not upfront about who is funding the research?
A couple of Google searches later lead to interesting finds: try "Ronan Connolly Koch" or "Connolly Willie Soon funding".
I'm not saying that taking money from oil&coal companies (and hiding it) necessarily implies that the research is biased, I'm just saying to take it with a big grain of salt.
But even with all of that, if you look at the charts they still clearly show the total impact (direct + indirect) of solar and wind is an order of magnitude lower than coal and oil.
I am the first author on this paper. Nobody paid me anything to write this paper. In fact, it cost me money, because I had to take time off to work on it.
I'll tell you what to take with a pinch of salt: allegations that the authors are taking money from vested interests. We are not.
Rather than searching for spurious grounds to discredit the authors, I recommend you read the paper for yourself. With the help of my co-authors, I searched the literature meticulously to investigate every aspect of the review, and we have cited our sources in the usual way - 255 previous papers, mostly peer-reviewed. By all means, read critically. Take all the research in this field with a heaped spoon of salt, because there may be bias in every direction. But there's no escaping the need to read the research literature if you want to assess the evidence for yourself. I hope you find it as intriguing as I did.
> Why are they not upfront about who is funding the research?
They don't need to be upfront about their funding because they know it's the first thing that ecologists will search on google to build an ad personam as we can see in the comments here /s
At least, someone's paying research that does not go in the mainstream direction, so we can be thankful for that which protects us from an unilateral debate: given that politics fund the mainstream research with the IPCC.
> The total impact (direct + indirect) of solar and wind is an order of magnitude lower than coal and oil.
Same goes for ROI: solar and wind is an order of magnitude lower than coal and oil.
We didn't need incentives to find what we found by reading the research. We reviewed the literature very thoroughly, seeking divergent opinions on every aspect, and we have presented our findings transparently. We recommend you read the full paper for yourself, and dig into the references where necessary, so that you can make up your own mind. We think you will find it very readable and thought-provoking. Enjoy!
I'm not saying that taking money from oil&coal companies (and hiding it) necessarily implies that the research is biased, I'm just saying to take it with a big grain of salt.
But even with all of that, if you look at the charts they still clearly show the total impact (direct + indirect) of solar and wind is an order of magnitude lower than coal and oil.