Homeward

The problem with this episode is that Picard clearly misinterprets what the Prime Directive is all about. The Prime Directive is about non-interference with a planetary society's culture. However, it says nothing about allowing an entire species to become extinct because of forces outside of that society's control (such as the natural disaster threatening to extinguish life from the surface of the planet in this episode). Essentially, his view would be that if a culture hasn't developed space flight capability on its own and a planetary disaster falls upon them, they should be allowed to die off.

Clearly, that view flies in the face of the Original Series episode "All Our Yesterdays" where the Enterprise tried to save some of the people of the planet Sarpeidon when its sun was going supernova. Star Fleet had ordered Kirk to rescue at least some of the people there, people who had not developed space flight capability.

So with the precedent already established in the Original Series, Picard's strained view simply doesn't hold any water especially since Worf's brother came up with a fairly ingenious way to transport the people without impacting their culture.