It is increasingly evident that the conventional scientific approach to economic processes and related sustainability issues is seriously flawed. No economist predicted the current planetary crisis even though the world has now undergone five severe recessions primed by dramatic increases in the price of oil. This book presents the results of more than twenty years of work aimed at developing an alternative method of analysis of the economic process and related sustainability issues: it is possible to perform an integrated and comprehensive analysis of the sustainability of socio-economic systems using indicators and variables that have been so far ignored by conventional economists.

The book 's innovative approach aims to provide a better framework with which we can face the predicaments of sustainability issues. It begins by presenting practical examples of the shortcomings of conventional economic analysis and examines the systemic problems faced when trying to use quantitative analysis for governance. In providing a critical appraisal of current applications of economic narratives to the issue of sustainability, the book presents several innovative concepts required to generate a post-Newtonian approach to quantitative analysis in the Musiasem approach. An empirical section illustrates the results of an analysis of structural changes in world and EU countries. Finally, the book, using the insight gained in the theoretical and empirical analysis, exposes the dubious quality of many narratives currently used in the sustainability debate.

Overall, the performance of modern economies across different hierarchical levels of organization and across different disciplinary knowledge systems is fully analyzed and a more realistic measure of happiness and well-being is devised. The book should be of interest to researchers and students looking at the issue of sustainability within a variety of disciplines.

The vast majority of the countries of the world are now facing an imminent energy crisis, particularly the USA, China, India, Japan and EU countries, but also developing countries having to boost their economic growth precisely when more powerful economies will prevent them from using the limited supply of fossil energy.

Despite this crisis, current protocols of energy accounting have been developed for dealing with fossil energy exclusively and are therefore not useful for the analysis of alternative energy sources. The first part of the book illustrates the weakness of existing analyses of energy problems: the science of energy was born and developed neglecting the issue of scale. The authors argue that it is necessary to adopt more complex protocols of accounting and analysis in order to generate robust energy scenarios and effective assessments of the quality of alternative energy sources.

The second part of the book introduces the concept of energetic metabolism of modern societies and uses empirical results. The authors present an innovative approach Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) capable of characterizing the quality of alternative energy sources in relation to both environmental constraints and socio-economic requirements. This method allows the metabolic pattern of a society to be described in relation to its feasibility, when looking at biophysical factors, and desirability, when looking at socio-economic factors.
Addressing the issue of scale in energy analysis by cutting through the confusion found in current applications of energy analysis, this book should be of interest to researchers, students and policy makers in energy within a variety of disciplines.

It is increasingly evident that the conventional scientific approach to economic processes and related sustainability issues is seriously flawed. No economist predicted the current planetary crisis even though the world has now undergone five severe recessions primed by dramatic increases in the price of oil. This book presents the results of more than twenty years of work aimed at developing an alternative method of analysis of the economic process and related sustainability issues: it is possible to perform an integrated and comprehensive analysis of the sustainability of socio-economic systems using indicators and variables that have been so far ignored by conventional economists.

The book 's innovative approach aims to provide a better framework with which we can face the predicaments of sustainability issues. It begins by presenting practical examples of the shortcomings of conventional economic analysis and examines the systemic problems faced when trying to use quantitative analysis for governance. In providing a critical appraisal of current applications of economic narratives to the issue of sustainability, the book presents several innovative concepts required to generate a post-Newtonian approach to quantitative analysis in the Musiasem approach. An empirical section illustrates the results of an analysis of structural changes in world and EU countries. Finally, the book, using the insight gained in the theoretical and empirical analysis, exposes the dubious quality of many narratives currently used in the sustainability debate.

Overall, the performance of modern economies across different hierarchical levels of organization and across different disciplinary knowledge systems is fully analyzed and a more realistic measure of happiness and well-being is devised. The book should be of interest to researchers and students looking at the issue of sustainability within a variety of disciplines.

The vast majority of the countries of the world are now facing an imminent energy crisis, particularly the USA, China, India, Japan and EU countries, but also developing countries having to boost their economic growth precisely when more powerful economies will prevent them from using the limited supply of fossil energy. Despite this crisis, current protocols of energy accounting have been developed for dealing with fossil energy exclusively and are therefore not useful for the analysis of alternative energy sources. The first part of the book illustrates the weakness of existing analyses of energy problems: the science of energy was born and developed neglecting the issue of scale. The authors argue that it is necessary to adopt more complex protocols of accounting and analysis in order to generate robust energy scenarios and effective assessments of the quality of alternative energy sources. The second part of the book introduces the concept of energetic metabolism of modern societies and uses empirical results. The authors present an innovative approach - Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) - capable of characterizing the quality of alternative energy sources in relation to both environmental constraints and socio-economic requirements. This method allows the metabolic pattern of a society to be described in relation to its feasibility, when looking at biophysical factors, and desirability, when looking at socio-economic factors. Addressing the issue of scale in energy analysis by cutting through the confusion found in current applications of energy analysis, this book should be of interest to researchers, students and policy makers in energy within a variety of disciplines.