psychology of protection

As I was driving home from a public meeting, I was listening to Ira Glass's radio show, "This American Life" and I was struck by something he said in relation to the enormous effort and energy he puts into his dog's life. This is what he said:

Its a hard thing to spend so much energy trying to protect a helpless creature, a helpless person or anything that is helpless in this world...
Its a hard thing to turn that off
Once you've been protecting it, your mind is used to protecting it and the thought that you wouldn't protect it just becomes offensive to who you are.
You can't flip off that part of yourself like its a light switch.

I struggle everyday to understand the strong and sometimes ideological feelings and attitudes my colleagues have towards developing solar energy projects in the desert wilderness. I understand and empathize with wanting to prevent the loss of wilderness and the loss of species habitat. I fully support development of renewable energy sources that do not cause immediate harm to our environment. I want to work with project developers to make them the best projects they can be. However, no matter which way I look at the issue I can't convince myself that these projects aren't a part of the solution to a much bigger and scarier and more destructive problem that looms in a more far-off future. This common understanding that climate change is the biggest threat to ALL life on earth seems to be lacking in my desert conservation colleagues and I struggle to understand why it is so hard for folks to swallow the tradeoffs.

I think Ira's quote above really gets at the psychology of protecting something and it helps me to better understand where folks are coming from when they adamantly and passionately fight what I see to be a part of the solution to climate change. Some of my peers, neighbors and colleagues have spent their lives and their careers protecting a place they love - the California deserts. And there have been grand successes that should be celebrated. Some of the very best land conservation successes have been in the CA deserts. So I can see how "once you've been protecting it, your mind becomes used to protecting it and the thought that you wouldn't protect it just becomes offensive to who you are."  And thus folks who call themselves "conservationists" yet promote renewable energy on the lands that have been defended for so long become offensive to those who have been doing the defending.

What we need a shift to a broader thinking around protection. And broader ethic that includes future generations living on the planet in 100 years and other life - human and otherwise - around the whole planet, not just the life near and dear to your heart or home.