The return to renewables: Will it help in global warming control?

For all but the last 250 years, mankind was almost entirely dependent on renewable energy, mainly from biomass and wind. Then the era of fossil fuels downed and we shifted away from renewables. But excessive use of fossil fuel has now precipitated existence-threatening climate change and ocean acidification. So the world is once again reverting to renewables in a big way. It is as if the human quest for energy has come full circle. But will this ‘home coming’ bail us out of the global environmental crisis? This paper says it will not as long as we do not drastically reduce the largely conspicuous and wasteful consumption.