Local vs Global Environmental Destruction

Starting with the previous post, I've been trying to grapple with a fundamental principle.  Is it more important to preserve the local environment or the global environment?

So suppose we have a choice to continue burning fossil fuels whose impact on ecologically important land is is relatively tiny, but have a global impact on the extinction of species or have massive solar farms using a much larger fraction of the ecologically useful land, therefore driving local extinctions (which add up globally)?

One thing is already clear.  Not all square meters are the same.  And there are impacts through occupation, degradation, and decimation, leading to a continuation of the concept that concentration is generally better than dispersal.  Some areas are more ecologically sensitive than others, both in principle, or as they are now, or as they might be restored at various levels of time, cost, or opportunity cost.

Anyway, I'm defining the question as I do because it is in fact generally my belief that preserving the global environment is the highest priority, and probably needs to be considered foremost.  So I'm all for wide area renewable energy systems, accompanied by vast reduction in energy waste (or even use) as well.  It should be done in such a way as to minimize both local and global degradation, and some areas are so sensitive they should not be degraded at all.  But generally it is most important to save the whole.

By a similar token, it is more important to save a species rather than individuals of a species.

This is not to say that growth can continue as before, with renewable on top of fossil fuels, and global war and planned obsolescence lead to vast waste.

The whole growth paradigm must end or it will be ended.  But replacement of fossil systems with renewable systems is a way forward in the event that it's even possible to avoid collapse.  In other words, if I'm wrong, and there's more hope than I think.

There's not such a thing as non-replacement as long as the growth paradigm continues.  If renewable energy isn't built, that same effort will likely go into building something whose environment destruction is even greater.

Another factor that needs be considered is the degree to which occupation, degradation, and decimation actually occur.

Wind farms in particular might leave a lot of space around essentially undisturbed, though the degree to which local animals are affected would need to be determined.  I believe Solar Farms produce greater occupation+degradation+decimation, but can still leave some space useful to local species.

Wind farms are a threat to individual birds, but what about bird species?  I generally believe this problem is exaggerated, birds generally learn to avoid wind farms, which is not so easy with pollution, cars, or tall buildings.

One thing to optimize would be to minimize the number of species made extinct, perhaps with an additional term of 1/10,000 the number of individuals killed from sensitive species, assuming an entire species to be 'worth' about that many, or whatever number makes sense in context.