Is another ice age predicted for the future?
Global cooling
The idea that ice ages cycles were predictable appears to have become conflated with the idea that another one was due "soon" - perhaps because much of this study was done by geologists, who are accustomed to dealing with very long time scales and use "soon" to refer to periods of thousands of years. A strict application of the Milankovitch theory does not allow the prediction of a "rapid" ice age onset (i.e., less than a century or two) since the fastest orbital period is about 20,000 years. Some creative ways around this were found, notably one championed by Nigel Calder under the name of "snowblitz", but these ideas did not gain wide acceptance.
The Diamond Age
"The Diamond Age" can be seen as a sequel to "Snow Crash", set many years later. This reading is based on a connection between Y.T., a major character in "Snow Crash", and the aged neo-Victorian Miss Matheson in "The Diamond Age", who drops oblique references to her past as a hard-edged skateboarder. This would set "The Diamond Age" some 80–100 years after "Snow Crash".