  A thermodynamic formulation for moving granular material is proposed. The
fluctuations due to the constant flux and dissipation of energy are controlled
in a `granular' ensemble by a pressure $\wp$ (`compression') which is conjugate
to a contact volume (`contactopy'). The corresponding response function
(`dissipativity') describes how dissipation increases with $\wp$ and should
serve to identify the fluidization transition and 1/f noise. In the granular
ensemble one can consider the granular medium as a gas of elastically colliding
particles and define a ``granular'' temperature and other standard
thermodynamic quantities. PACS: 05.70, 46.10
