In “The White House Effect,” directors Bonni Cohen, Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk’s document how a chance to take real action on global warming was not just squandered but deliberately undermined by the George H.W. Bush administration (1988-1992).
Bush took office in 1988, which, at the time, was the planet’s hottest year on record. The former president promised to take on the greenhouse effect with what he called the “White House Effect” and tackle the problem head on. The doc uses only archival footage to tell the story of how seeds of disinformation around climate change were sown in America three decades ago. In the film, the schism between action and denial plays out in the Oval Office as Bush’s head of the Environmental Protection Agency William Riley and his chief of staff John Sununu face off over setting limits on fossil fuel emissions. “The White House Effect” concludes with Bush’s arrival in Rio in 1992 where the United States not only breaks its own promises but undermines the entire global project to set real limits on emissions by the year 2000, setting the stage for the world’s current climate crisis.
Variety spoke to the “White House Effect” directors Cohen, Kos and Shenk ahead of the doc’s Telluride Film Festival premiere on Aug. 31.
What was the impetus for making this doc?
Shenk: For decades climate change has infamously been a difficult story to tell. It’s almost too big for a single human mind and heart to conceive of what’s at stake. It never dawned on us to tell the history of how we got to where we are today until we read this great New York Times Magazine article by Nathaniel Rich called “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change” about what happened in the 1980s. It was an epiphany for us that there were real characters involved that could tell that dramatic story.
Cohen: Jon and Pedro and I have made a lot of films about climate heroes. Those films did great work, but we were looking for subject matter in the climate space that wasn’t necessarily just preaching to the choir. And we dove back into this very dramatic moment — this four-year period in American history where all these things aligned: The climate science was in. We knew global warming existed. There was a drought in the country. The American people, from farmers to businessmen, were on alert. So, we were set to do the right thing. And what the film explores is how Bush had this drama unfold inside of his administration, a standoff between his chief of staff John Sununu and his EPA administrator Bill Riley, like the devil and the angel on his shoulders. The American economy was tanking. There were issues with the oil companies and Bush ends up turning his back on global warming.
How did you choose the specific material you use in the film to tell the history of climate change?
Kos: Initially we had the lofty ambition to go back to when the first oil well was drilled in 1859, in Titusville, Pa., and come all the way to the present. I mean, we’ve amassed 14,178 pieces of archival material. We dreamt very big and what happened was that we knew we needed a focal point and we needed to home in on the why. Why the fate of the Earth became a political football. Why we became split as a society.
Another aspect of the film is how Americans began reacting to the information — true or not. Why did you decide to focus on that?
Cohen: We wanted to show — through the use of television and radio, the physical dissemination of information to the American people — how the messaging started to change. All of a sudden, socialism is a word that’s being used in relation to the environment. People like Rush Limbaugh — these titans of disinformation — seize on it. For us, it was really important to show how we as Americans became culpable. We took in this information. Did we question it correctly? Were we looking at the right science? Were we listening to our politicians? The four years Bush was in office may not have been the beginning of the disinformation movement, but it’s one of the beginnings. The archival materials show these ideas taking root in the country. And what we show in this film is so mild in comparison to how far we’ve since come.
What do you hope audiences take away from the film?
Cohen: We are targeting young people with this film: college age, early 20s. And when they watch it, there’s a level of disbelief and outrage and that’s what we are going for. You can put a message at the end of a film, which is what we’ve historically done with climate change films — you know, change your light bulbs, go solar, drive electric cars. All those things are important, but for us, the creative motivator was outrage. We want the viewer to have this mic drop moment of complete outrage at the end of the film.
This interview has been edited and condensed. “The White House Effect” is seeking distribution.
