Planet could face freeze in 10,000 years

The planet could face a freeze worse than an Ice Age starting in as little as 10,000 years, giving future societies a headache the opposite of coping with global warming, scientists said on Wednesday.

The researchers, based in Britain and Canada, said that now-vilified greenhouse gases might help in future to avert a chill that could smother much of Canada and the United States, Europe and Russia in permanent ice.

They said the study, based on records of tiny marine fossils and the earth's shifting orbit, did not mean the world should stop fighting warming, stoked by human emissions of heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels.