That's a terrible article. The little ice age had a large number of causes most of which were local to Europe or at most the Northern Hemisphere. The main poin

That's a terrible article. The little ice age had a large number of causes most of which were local to Europe or at most the Northern Hemisphere. The main point about the sun quieting down is that it makes inter planetary travel survivable since the largest source of radiation in space close to Earth is the Sun. This could well be a godsend that lets us start manned missions to the planets without having to wait 50 years for inventing new ways to keep people alive in high radiation environments, e.g. either with increased biological cell repair or physical/magnetic shields. The last time we left Earth's magnetic field we got lucky and missed a flair that could have incapacitated/killed an Apollo mission: http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/01sep_sentinels/ http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/0...