Happy Thought for 9 July 2026

Have a Happy Thought:

Sunshine lifts your spirits.

If you’re in the northern hemisphere right now, you’re getting plenty of that sunshine. And statistically, if you are a human, you are more likely to live in the northern hemisphere. (although statistically, if you receive this by email, you are juuuust more likely to be in the southern hemisphere.)

More humans live in the eastern hemisphere than the western, as well.

This gives rise to some very interesting maps, like… Here is a view of the globe that captures only 7% of humanity:

Image: Map of the earth where a small dot represents 2,500 people. The bottom image shows New Zealand pretty much in the centre, and only represents 7% of humanity. Source: Bill Rankin, 2015. CC BY-SA.

This uneven distribution of humanity on the planet means that, in northern hemisphere summer, during the eastern hemisphere mid-day, there are times where 99% of humanity is in sunlight (unless there are clouds, but you get the point).

Image: map of the earth showing daylight hours at midday GMT in mid-northern-hemisphere-summer. Source: Al Jazeera

You may be thinking that we are a few weeks past the solstice (longest day in the northern hemisphere), so how is this still happening? This “99% of humanity in daylight” actually lasts for about a month to either side of the solstice!

The truly wild thing for me personally is that 99% of the people who will get this email are either in total or near darkness in the image above - a real reversal from an “average” human 😂

All of that being said… we really do miss the sun here in Aotearoa, so we’d be grateful if those of you in the Northern Hemisphere wouldn’t mind sending some back our way… maybe over the next few months?

Image: the seasons on earth. Source: NOAA

 

Check out some of the nuances to the 99% of humanity in sunlight here: 99% of people on Earth will get sunlight at the same time this Wednesday | Science and Technology News | Al Jazeera