In late 19th century one of the largest parties in France was called Radicals.  Which meant that they were not socialist, but somewhat progressive.

The proudly sticked to a slogan that perhaps they do not propose much, but what they propose is possible.  Hence the press coinded the term "possibilists", and a synonym, "opportunists".
I guess that our "realists" should be called "impressionists", because they want to establish policies according to popular impressions, or their impression of what the popular impression is.

In case of CO2 emission crisis, we got biofuels as realistic solutions.  Some kwetch agaist nuclear power, others want to dismantle the largest hydro power stations, wind turbines obstruct pristine views, but biofuels can increase farm prices and they do not much of visible harm anyway, so they can be offered as consensus proposals.

Then we got proposal to investigate various more or less far-fetched technologies, God forbid to go for something we can do NOW.

The problem we have, at this is not just on climate change, that on one side we have bold lies and hysteria, on the other timid vote counting.

I would like someone to inspect Bush's numbers.   He and his people claimed that addressing global warming along Kioto requirements would costs us 2 trillion, while Iraq war would cost between 50 billion and nothing (the latter was from the finance genius, Wolfowitz).  The war has the cost of at least a trillion, so it is established that we can spend a billion "just in case, because we could not be sure".  In the same time, from the cost of investments to decrease carbon emission we must subtract the cost of not making these investments.  For example, from the time Bush made his estimates, the price of oil tripled.