Ramos-Martin, J., Giampietro, M., Ulgiati, S. (2011): “Can we break the addiction to fossil energy?”, Ecological Modelling, Vol. 223 (1): 1-3. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.colmodel.2011.10.024 Editorial Can we break the addiction to fossil energy? 7th Biennial International Workshop “Advances in Energy Studies” Barcelona, Spain, 19-21 October 2010 Modelling society’s energy metabolism The link between energy consumption, economic development and the environment has long been a major topic of interest among scientists and laymen alike. However, the term societal metabolism has come into use relatively recently to refer in general to the modelling and analysis of the economic process from a biophysical perspective (Martínez-Alier, 1987; Ayres and Simonis, 1994; Adriaanse et al., 1997; Duchin, 1998; Fischer-Kowalski, 1998; Matthews et al., 2000; Giampietro et al., 2011). The rationale behind this term is based on several theoretical concepts and models related to the special status of complex adaptive systems, such as the concept of self-organizing systems in the field of non-equilibrium thermodynamics (Prigogine, 1978; Prigogine and Stengers, 1981); the concept of autopoietic systems – systems capable of making themselves – proposed by Maturana and Varela (1980) in the field of complex system theory; the flow-fund model proposed by Georgescu-Roegen (1971) to analyze the pattern of production and consumption in the economic process in the new field of bioeconomics; the concept of ecological organization through informed autocatalytic cycles proposed by Odum (1971; 1983) in the field of theoretical ecology; and the basic rationale of energy analysis applied to the study of human societies (Cottrell, 1955; Lotka, 1956; White, 1959). Building on these scientific contributions, the concept of societal metabolism aims to focus the analysis on how energy is used by society to keep the economic process running and, at the same time, on the constraints associated with the ecological processes required to guarantee the stability of boundary conditions. As a matter of fact, since the 1970s, the concept of energy and material metabolism of human society has been widely applied, albeit under different names, to describe and analyze the sustainability of farming systems, economic systems, and more in general the