It’s not coming---green.

Earth has gone through at least five major ice ages in its history. And you better start adapting now. Because another ice age is about to begin. Hypothetically. How would a new ice age change Earth as we know it? What could you do to survive on a frozen planet? And how are we already delaying another ice age?

During all ice ages in Earth’s history, global temperatures dropped well below freezing across the planet. And it wasn’t just a few icy trips around the Sun. Earth can take hundreds of millions of years to thaw out. The most recent ice age started the Quartenary period about 2.6 million years ago. And technically, we’re still in it today.

Ice ages have the power to radically change our planet. They reshape landscapes. They create new lakes and rivers. Plants and animals cling to life, either adapting or facing extinction. So, if a new ice age began today, how soon would our civilization collapse into chilly chaos?

Our sixth major ice age would be a few thousand years in the making. And it would begin with Earth’s tilt on its axis going through its cycle of changes. An unstable tilt plus a little wobble in our orbit around the Sun, and there would be less and less solar radiation reaching the planet. You’d see the first effects of this on the Northern Hemisphere.