One important thing they do is protect our atmosphere from blowing away in the solar wind, which is more of a law of averages sort of thing and not much gets lo

One important thing they do is protect our atmosphere from blowing away in the solar wind, which is more of a law of averages sort of thing and not much gets lost in just a hundred years. I'm not sure that the charged particles the Van Allen belt stops would actually reach all the way to the surface of the Earth. I haven't heard of radiation danger up at the poles when the aurora is out.