The fact that we're using "hard conversations" as a euphemism for large scale violence is a wry comment on just how hard those conversations will actually be.
I don't expect that colonization of Mars or other distant places will save "us", but it might well save many of those who go. There are lots of ways in which places on Mars are less hospitable to human life than places on Earth, but if things get really bad on Earth, the surrounding weather will not be nearly as bad as how other people are reacting.
It will take a really long time before any off-planet colony could be self-sustaining. Just think about how long the supply chains for even the simplest things needed for repairs are. Until then Earth is either fucked due to climate change or we have a local solution to the problem.
There's also the more strategic aspects of interplanetary exploration. Namely: rendering those places conceptually impractical as a doctrine of area denial.
Area denial isn't just about land mines. It can mean fomenting political unrest among the constituents of a standing, stable, and sustainable Martian colony, so that it's suddenly an unappealing alternative to solving Earth's problems. Don't go there, it's the Salem witch trials and the holocaust all at once. Stay here and fix the biosphere instead.
I don't expect that colonization of Mars or other distant places will save "us", but it might well save many of those who go. There are lots of ways in which places on Mars are less hospitable to human life than places on Earth, but if things get really bad on Earth, the surrounding weather will not be nearly as bad as how other people are reacting.