A chef picks produce from a rooftop apple orchard in downtown Vancouver.
Technicians spread black polyethylene balls on Ivanhoe Reservoir.
Engineers work on an electric car prototype in a California factory.
Workers examine paper bales at a recycling plant in Bordeaux, France.
Diver on One Tree Island in Australia
Adam Howland of Long Way Home builds a green building at Guatemala's San Juan Comalapa municipality.
An engineer wearing protective clothing and eyewear tests solar cells in a Spanish laboratory.
California Academy of Sciences Living Roof
Pelamis P2 wave energy generator
A worker is dwarfed by wind turbine blades at the Siemens facility in Aalborg, Denmark.
A downtown Phoenix biofuel project produces sunflowers on a vacant lot to test renewable energy technologies.
Student Rose Mandungu stands in front of a colorful apartment complex made from shipping containers in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
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Urban GrowersA chef picks "farm fresh" produce from an unusual source—a rooftop apple orchard planted among the high-rises of downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. The Fairmont Waterfront hotel project showcases two large sectors of the growing green-jobs movement: food production and green building. Green roof gardens can deliver locally sourced foods that help protect the environment by minimizing the use of pesticides, fossil fuels, and other resources to grow and transport food to market from larger commercial farms. Green roofs can also improve the urban environment by insulating buildings against energy loss, managing storm water, improving air quality, and providing places of recreation. —Brian Handwerk (See more Rio+20 and Sustainable Earth content)
Photograph by Diane Cook and Len Jenshel, National Geographic

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