Humans are the only animal that will protect the Earth from the next, inevitable, asteroid impact extinction event, which could easily kill all the dolphins, whales and gorillas, as well as 90% of the other species, and 99.99% of the individual life entities on the planet. Or maybe all life.

Humans are the only animal that will protect the Earth from the next, inevitable, big climate change—whether it’s glaciation or global warming—whether caused by humans, the sun, orbital mechanics or anything else. Such an event could easily kill half the species on Earth, and, as an extreme, all life on Earth.

Humans are the only animal that will protect the Earth from increasing solar luminosity or other unpleasant nearby cosmic events.

Humans are the only species that will seed life on other worlds and be sure it stays.

Humans are the only creatures that will leave a record of our existence, and the existence of our fellow creatures, of our world, our experiences, our thoughts and feelings for some other entity to find and know us by in a billion years.

If humans disappeared from Earth, what would be the point? A place hardly exists if it’s not observed. All the animals, rocks and water would do their thing; nothing would notice or care, except for a few animals for a few days. When the stage was struck in a 100 million or billion years; nothing at all would be remembered. It might as well never have been.

Humans are the only ones who could defeat that total oblivion. As far as we know humans are the most important entities in the universe. We have an obligation to try to protect Earth, and life, to remember the past, and to provide memories for the future. We are the only ones who can do this, which is partially why the needs of other life on Earth, and all aspects of Earth are subservient to our needs. We are the guardians and the memory.