OK, so I’m sure I haven’t been the first person to use that pun about New Orleans, but it seemed appropriate given the subject matter of this post.

One of the presentations I saw today was from Tom Darden of the Make It Right Foundation. This is a charity set up by Brad Pitt to help promote green building practices, specifically by rebuilding homes in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans – the area devastated by the breach in the Industrial Canal levee during hurricane Katrina. Encouragingly the community was very keen on the idea of environmentally responsible buildings. The new houses have solar panels on their roofs that allow them to go off the grid on sunny days, and achieve zero run-off of water. The technology for the latter includes “permeable concrete” capable of absorbing 8 gallons of water per square foot. The project, and the photogenic Mr. Pitt, are featured on the front cover of the current issue of Architectural Digest magazine.

Originally we were scheduled to have Brad Pitt as the after dinner speaker for tomorrow night. However, he is subject to demands from higher powers (presumably starting with Angelina) and had to be elsewhere. So it isn’t just Worldcon that has difficulty getting Hollywood to put in an appearance.