Strange, but if you google the terms "peak" "helium", you will arrive at yours truly blog as the first hit. But now we see the reality has come to bear, thanks to some cartoon characters and a bunch of Puritans. Disaster averted for the moment, but parade planners should still worry. Helium gas suppliers claim that the old "inadequate refinery capacity" as the cause of the shortage (where have we heard that before? oh yeah).
Face it folks, as natural gas peaks, so will our helium supply and these shortages will become more prevalent until we start realizing that helium remains too valuable a resource to waste on parade balloons. Not one to completely dwell on the negative, and potentially disappoint all the children of the future, I suggest that we can always resort to alternatives.
So how about this idea? Let's hold Thanksgiving Day's parades at night and project hologram-like apparitions into the sky, and possibly use smog particulates to disperse the light.
Or, better yet, fill the balloons up with hydrogen and then we can combine Thanksgiving and 4th of July into one spectacular holiday.
Update: Tough times for the fish as well.