What would a cooling trend in weather bring to the world?

Let me begin this commentary on the world’s changing climate by saying that climatology, the study of long-range trends in weather, is at best an inexact science. It is based on hypotheses. Currently, a major argument among climatologists concerns the long-range weather outlook for the earth. The question that occupies them so much is this: Is the earth cooling off, or is it in fact heating up? Is the earth going through a cooling trend or a warming trend? A cooling trend could bring mass starvation and fuel shortage. But on the other hand, a warming trend could melt the polar ice caps and cause flooding of the coastal cities. In either case, the consequences for man might be alarming, and possibly disastrous. Let me just point out that rains and floods of record proportions have recently struck some geographic areas around the world while droughts have devastated other areas.
    Climatologists, in general, are truly puzzled by the change taking place today. As I already said, some parts of the world are cooling off while others are growing warmer. Climatologists hope to discover why this is so and perhaps to predict what will come next. A number of climatologists believe the earth is, in fact, undergoing a cooling trend, and is returning to the conditions of the "Little Ice Age". This "Little Ice Age" could best be described as the cold, clamp weather that was the characteristic of the period from approximately the 14th century to the mid-19th century. Climatologists generally agree that whatever the long-term trend in the earth’s climate is, we are witnessing a period of increasing climatological change, a period that is making seasonal weather predictions and agricultural planning more and more difficult, if not altogether impossible.