The paper “From valuing nature to reclaiming resources,” by Ioan Negrutiu and colleagues, frames an exercise in argumentation this way: assessing our resources and permanently accounting for their usage and allocation are imperative for imagining and designing societies that are socio-ecosystemically resilient. In this way a vision of a resource-centered “slow/soft” Anthropocene is emerging, a practical application for which is appended to the paper. A second exercise executed during the seminar, which focused on Berlin-based actors, sought to understand how society engaged with the transition process. In this context, Herbert Lohner expands on robust mechanisms for effective sustainability strategies in the achievement of sustainable development targets in the city of Berlin.

Environmental responsibility begins with properly quantifying the human impact on ecosystems and then making use of the metrics of nature-valuation to preserve high-quality life-supporting systems in the long term. This is indeed feasible, because quantitative and modeling tools are more available today than they were in the past. Yet, in the past, understanding nature’s value in an economic sense became the common instrument for balancing the human impact. This is illustrated by Sabine Höhler’s presentation, “Taking Nature into Account—Historical Perspectives and Paradoxes,” which discusses how in the Age of Enlightenment, scientific and economic practices merged to represent the perfect order of nature and state.

Finally, an artistic approach to an alternative “cultural-shift” scenario is presented in Natalie Jeremijenko’s project “Tree X Office.” If the human capacity to own property bestows political agency, independence, and even personhood upon the owner, what would happen if a tree is given this same capacity?