Sustainability, Adaptation and Resilience are the three green buzzwords headlining the green agenda. Compartmentalising these is a problem as they all play a part in the challenges cities will be forced to engage in.

If resilience suggests taking a hit now and again, will we see protecting ourselves against climate change as a fight or should we consider an alternative attitude?

Sustainability, Adaptation and Resilience are the three green buzzwords headlining the green agenda. Compartmentalising these is a problem as they all play a part in the challenges cities will be forced to engage in.

If resilience suggests taking a hit now and again, will we see protecting ourselves against climate change as a fight or should we consider an alternative attitude?

Just over half of London's flat rooftops are suitable for conversion into urban farms, says architect Oscar Rodriguez. That's 10,000 hectares; and he claims they'd produce enough to give the city's 8.3 million people over a kilogram of food each day.

When Tiana Begum and her two teenagers moved into their new home in a 1970’s council flat in West London, the landlord didn’t just hand over the keys but also the pamphlet for their local veg-box scheme, which delivers fresh produce grown in the rooftop greenhouse above their heads. ‘That’s not food miles,’ Tiana exclaimed, ‘that’s food metres!’

Oscar's vision pre-empts a future where peak oil, unstable climate, exponential human population growth and rising sea levels will continue to impact agricultural productivity, and cause geopolitical unrest and volatile food prices.

In this scenario, rooftop agriculture will perhaps become a necessity rather than a nicety, and we need the infrastructure in place sooner rather than later.