I Love a Balloon.
Did you know the earth is running out of helium? Helium, a chemical element that we cannot easily replenish, is lighter than air. When it's not trapped underground, it goes up up and away through our atmosphere, gone forever. Supplies of helium left on this planet are dwindling fast. Scientists think we may run out within ten to twenty years.
We are the lucky ones, to have been born in this brief era of the helium balloon. Don't laugh! It's a big deal.
In the not-so-distant future, helium supplies could be so low that the idea of filling a balloon with helium just for the fun of it will be out of the question. Maybe our kids will only get to see one helium balloon, in science class.
Even if you don't remember having your first helium balloon, I bet at the time it really made you think. Holding it by a string, you could feel its weight pulling up, instead of down. To me, holding a balloon always felt like I had something from another world on a leash. A transparent little animal that was only visible because he was wearing a colorful (and very snug) rubber suit. The more you stared at that helium balloon it probably brought up all kinds of questions in your mind about the way the world worked and what was possible and impossible.
Now that we're adults, balloons are a novelty. But the experience may have left more of an impression that you realize. In movies and literature, using imagery of helium balloons has proven to be a very successful way to evoke feelings of curiosity, adventure, freedom, and awe in people of all ages and backgrounds. In my opinion, anything that can create such rare feelings in so many people was well worth every balloon-full of helium and I'm so glad to have part of this balloon era.
(A quick but important note: You should never release helium balloons! They could choke a whale or kill other animals!)
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Comments
Joe436 Wednesday, February 10, 2010
You can also use it to sound like Mikey Mouse or a munchkin. It's the second most abundant element in universe. We need to go into space and get some.
David Thursday, February 11, 2010
Our supply of helium comes from natural gas wells -- when we drill for natural gas, we can capture the accompanying helium as a by-product. The United States keeps a National Helium Reserve, which was originally established so there would be adequate helium for use in airships. Since we never built big fleets of blimps, we stopped adding to the helium reserve it in the 1990s. I hadn't heard about supplies running low, though -- interesting.
Nowadays helium is used in a few blimps, toy balloons, and in physics research when very cold temperatures are required. When cooled to near absolute zero, helium becomes a superfluid with strange properties.
romeo Thursday, February 11, 2010
according to h. kroll ~there are invariably huge deposits of untapped helium reserves within the vicinity of the arctic circle