We are solar powered. We need sunlight stored by photosynthesis

Are their lives less important than ours? Or is life a single web- if we kill them we kill ourselves?

Plants store solar radiation energy, not Q. Herbivores eat that stored energy and convert it chemically into the energy their bodies and brains need to function. Warm-blooded animals used such stored energy to accelerate their metabolisms. We are ourselves powered indirectly by solar radiation stored in plants and in animals that eat plants. Yet we are busily destroying the living cover of the earth that we need to survive.

The surface of the planet receives about 10²²J solar energy per day and radiates about that much back at night. That is 8000 times more than is consumed by all humanity ([w04]). A small fraction of the solar energy that falls on earth is transformed into atmospheric enthalpy by greenhouse gasses. Different gasses get more of the blame depending on whose causes are being pleaded.