The whole point of Mars (or any other second planet) is redundancy. If something happens to earth we have a backup plan, as a species.
No. It's some combination of cowardice, greed and ego, by those involved.
You can bet your ass those guys are not thinking about saving the species. Lol. Furthest thing from their minds.
Solve the Earth's problems on Earth instead, no need to run off to Mars.
That's just kicking the can down the road.
Who do you think are "those guys"? Talking Musk? NASA? All the people who have dreamt of traveling the stars the last 100 years?
Remember, we landed on the moon before Elon Musk was born. He's also not the first to talk about landing or living on Mars.
And it's not to hedge against us destroying the planet. It's to hedge against an asteroid or other occurrence we can't control.
Fun fact, the first person to mention colonising other planets is John Wilkens in the 17th century. I'm sure you'll find a way to connect that to Musk though.