How valid is science to environmental problems? We, scientists, implicitly feel hatred towards those who place “science” and “validity” into the same category. Since science is one type of our knowledge, it should not necessarily have to benefit society. This kind of opinion is frequently heard among scientists.
However, when we see the destructions of the environment occuring in front of our own eyes, we desperately need to fill the gap between science and environ-mental problems. Our science is not fully efficient, though.
What makes things worse is that environmental problems do not fit with the method of science. For instance, in the field of sociology one can discover the method of re-organization of inhabitants in the regions where environment has destroyed. Also one can point out the characteristics of movements concerning ecology and even classify the movements. But you step forward wanting to “diagnose” the problem, you will find yourself soon holding up your hands in surrender. And then we, field reseachers, have intended to make a framework which is suitable to analize and even diagnose the environmental problems oc-curing in communities.
Our foci are as follows. We consider all social theories in the world are under some ideology or ism. And we call our ideology as a “life-environmentalism”. This is the naming to distinguish it from a natural-environmentalism which emphasizes ecological setting, and from a “modern techno-centrism” which put its emphasis on the modern techniques without doubt. We just stand the same position with the inhabitants who live everyday life in communities. We try to understand the meaning of the traditional knowledges and the logics having been fostered in everyday life, of organization they have made. In other words, our starting point to analize social problems are to try to understand what is the “facts” to the inhabitants but not to the scientists.