Actually, the blanket analogy is a good one. I'm writing this for you, Taco, as nobody else will be coming around here to read it!
Much of the Sun's energy that hits the Earth in all wavelengths is absorbed and reemitted as IR (because the energy goes into heating the surfaces). Atmospheric CO2 does not block these incoming wavelengths, it only blocks the IR. This is the crux of the problem, and this is why small changes in the amount of CO2 make for large changes in the amount of energy radiated away from Earth.
The problem with modern science is that we've passed the "intuitive to the layman" stage about 300 years ago. Modern discoveries such as climate modeling, statistics, orbital mechanics, quantum theories, and SR / GR are very non-intuitive to the layman.