How Global Warming Will Burn Bush

In April, when British Prime Minister Tony Blair went down to Crawford, Texas, to powwow with George W. Bush, the cowboy president couldn't wait to show off his brush-clearing skills and drive Blair around his 1,600-acre Prairie Chapel ranch. Nature had other ideas. Instead of enjoying the usual balmy spring weather, Crawford was inundated with rain, including an unusually severe thunderstorm and hail the size of golf balls, that forced the prime minister to stay indoors for pecan pie. Blair had to drive to the nearest airport to depart rather than taking the official chopper.

The Rev. Larry Wood, a self-proclaimed Internet evangelist who tracks the "divine viewpoints" of various weather events, declared the freak storm a curse on the president for his failure to support Israel. (Bush had recently criticized Ariel Sharon.) Others drew an alternate explanation for the odd weather: global warming. But that possibility apparently seemed as remote to Bush as the likelihood that the storm was a sign from God. Shortly afterwards, Bush proposed easing enforcement of clean air regulations for the nation's dirtiest power plants, the country's primary producers of greenhouse-gas emissions. By easing up on such emissions, Bush may be endangering the one place where he actually seems to care about the environment: his Crawford ranch.

In 1999, even as he was dismissing conservation measures for the rest of the country, Bush was building rainwater collection systems and passive solar designs into his ranch house. While his own kids have questioned the sanity of wanting to vacation in a place whose most famous area neighbor is the Branch Davidian compound, the president goes to Crawford every chance he gets. He likes nothing better than to harness up the Jeep and drive foreign dignitaries around the ranch to point out the native wildlife among the oak groves (although Vladimir Putin's November tour was also washed out).

But the wildlife that Bush so enjoys is imperiled by unchecked global warming. Because of its topography, Texas is second only to California among the states likely to be the hardest hit by climate change. "What George Bush seems to be oblivious to is that global warming promises to make a lot of trouble for this state," says Peter Altman, director of the SEED project, an environmental group in Austin.

Bush's security people may be able to cordon off Prairie Chapel from the rest of the world, but they're powerless against the planetary alterations threatening to attack several precious features of the Bush ranch. Here's a primer:

Cow Genitals: The president is one of Crawford's "gentleman ranchers," who raise cattle for fun (and tax breaks). His spread claims 200 head of cattle that ruminate peacefully on the ranch's former cotton fields. But that bucolic scene might disappear if, as predicted, maximum summer temperatures in Texas increase by three to seven degrees over the next century. While three degrees might not seem like much, consider that the average July high temperature in Crawford is already 97 degrees, and that it's not unusual for Crawford to have 30 days of unbroken 100-degree weather in the summer. That kind of heat puts cows at risk of, well, having their 'nads cooked. Not only can high temperatures reduce semen quality and libido in bulls, but they can reduce fertility in cows as well.

Retirement Porch Swing: One of the Bush ranch house's most endearing features is its wrap-around porch that has room for many swings and rockers for George and Laura, who plan to retire to Crawford. But a projected 10- to 25-degree increase in the July heat index may well render the porch uninhabitable, as the heat is deadly to the elderly and people with bad tickers, meaning Dick Cheney will probably have to skip Bush-administration reunions.