In my lifetime, material progress was the solution to human suffering, the cause of human suffering, the cause of the planet suffering and due to making Gaia angry, the cause of human suffering again. There’s a fair bit of masochism in Western society and its outlet is environmentalism. The Greens really hate people and now they may have some great news. An ice age is on the horizon.

The Earth could be headed for a ‘mini ice age’ researchers have warned.

A new study claims to have cracked predicting solar cycles – and says that between 2020 and 2030 solar cycles will cancel each other out.

This, they say, will lead to a phenomenon known as the ‘Maunder minimum’ – which has previously been known as a mini ice age when it hit between 1646 and 1715, even causing London’s River Thames to freeze over.

The new model of the Sun’s solar cycle is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun’s 11-year heartbeat.

It draws on dynamo effects in two layers of the Sun, one close to the surface and one deep within its convection zone.

Predictions from the model suggest that solar activity will fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the ‘mini ice age’ that began in 1645, according to the results presented by Prof Valentina Zharkova at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno.

The model predicts that the pair of waves become increasingly offset during Cycle 25, which peaks in 2022.

During Cycle 26, which covers the decade from 2030-2040, the two waves will become exactly out of synch and this will cause a significant reduction in solar activity.

‘In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other – peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the Sun,’ said Zharkova.

‘Their interaction will be disruptive, or they will nearly cancel each other.

‘We predict that this will lead to the properties of a ‘Maunder minimum”

The Maunder Minimum, as a sidebar explains, “is the name used for the period starting in about 1645 and continuing to about 1715 when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time.” That corresponds to a period know as the Little Ice Age. It is also the period global warmists exclude from their models since it screws up their predictions.

If you live in Florida, a mild cooling of the climate is great news as it will mean San Diego style weather 12 months a year. If you live in Boston it means you will be shoveling snow in June and learning how to live with 20 foot snow piles in your drive. The good news is you have fifteen years to stock up on ice melt and work on your shoveling technique.