Is Google's view too pessimistic?

This article highlights the near-rhetorical argument that we shouldn't bother with renewable energies since the market is going to be too slow to make them adoptable in time.
"they also found that this new technology would still be adopted too slowly to avert significant global warming — in part because the technology wouldn't be cheap enough to displace all the existing coal and gas plants out there that have already been paid for."
This is like riding a 200 pound, thin tire bicycle on a deep, soft beach. You could just put the bike down and run to get to where you are going. Or you could struggle to pedal the bike slowly and arduously, trying to keep momentum and balance on the shifting sands, stopping and starting over and over.
The market is the bike.
All the world's renewable energy needs in R&D would be taken care of in about one year if a global university project was set in motion with about 15% of all military spending. Like the push for the atomic bomb (Manhattan project), a non-market based initiative would speed up this R&D drag exponentially.
We need to get off the stupid bike. Making things "profitable" and "competitive" in the market is NOT the same as validating true technological progress towards a sustainable future.

http://www.vox.com/2014/11/19/7247103/google-renewable-energy-research