TurkeyJ: everything you say in your first paragraph is right.
The thing which is discussed are the feedbacks: are they positive or negatives? We don't know all of them, we don't have a full grasp of their effects.
Hence why all the 90' models failed to predict the last 15 years of temperature trends.

Another thing which subject to discussion are the temperature sets quality: the major ones are using ground stations and not satellites. And those stations are often badly placed.

Then, about natural disasters: no relation has been found. Better: higher temperatures may mean more water in some desertic lands due to more evaporation.

Researchers may be far away from policy (an I doubt, see who attends all those climate conferences) but when money is granted to study climate change, you get more chances to get some when you can link whatever you're studying with climate change. Little by little this creates a big change in the available litterature.

Even if the worst happened would it cost more to adapt or to try to mitigate it?

[Linked Image from w3.the-kgb.com][Linked Image from w3.the-kgb.com]