I agree with you. Of course CO2 is critical. Besides providing plants the necessary carbon for sugar, we get O2 in return. But it is also critical for regulating the transfer of heat to our atmosphere. However, very small additional amounts can have huge changes in atmospheric temperature. But you won't see me argue this with anyone. Not because I don't believe it, but I don't care if the planet runs off the rails. I simply won't argue a point that seems easy enough to understand. I also won't warn someone twice who is about to step in front of a bus. I am content to let people believe they are right about any issue they feel they are right about.I agree that we should have had cleaner and more efficient forms of energy by now, and I believe we would have if not for intentional manipulation and suppression. But I don't buy the table top CO2 experiment you're describing, simply because it doesn't come anywhere near duplicating the conditions and variables involved with the Earth's atmosphere and ecosystem. You would have to account for the effect of trees for example, just to name one thing. CO2 is essential to plant life and a key part of the Earth's lifecycle.
I do believe where most people get frustrated with global warming is that the Left has politicized the message and hijacked the green movement and morphed it into an "agenda".
This is why I focus on clean air and water and food. I realize that much of our modern solutions touted by the Left rely on the backs of "slaves" in Asia and Africa who work in dirty mines under threat of death and harm in order to mine rare earth minerals necessary for "solutions". America has cleaner and better mining solutions and if we are really serious we would look to our own country own these solutions and minerals rather than the silliness of the left.