Most people probably don’t remember that “global warming,” or whatever you want to call it, was a major issue—let alone a political one—until the past decade or two. But as The White House Effect attests, it was salient in the public eye about 35 years ago, and it was not yet politically divisive. There was a moment when early, decisive action was possible—and then that moment passed.
Screening at the Telluride Film Festival, this documentary is both intriguing and damning, assembled entirely from archival footage by directors Bonni Cohen, Pedro Cos, and Jon Shenk, who turn back the clock primarily to the first Bush presidency: a term that began with the promotion of lofty environmental ideals and ended with major missed opportunities and the deliberate initiation of a science denial that continues to impede progress, despite all the sobering evidence of accelerating climate change. While it may not have the audience or impact of “An Inconvenient Truth,” it should be equally essential viewing for anyone concerned about humanity’s future—especially now that heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, and so on have already swelled into a near-constant climate crisis.
The film opens with a barrage of news and pop culture flashbacks to 1988, when the “global warming effect” was much discussed amid record droughts and soaring temperatures across the United States. At a Senate hearing on the issue, a NASA climate scientist says there is no doubt about the cause and effect of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. Another expert notes that these warnings have been heard in the scientific community for 15 years already. Incoming President George H.W. Bush embraces the reality of global warming, saying that the “White House effect” is strong enough to combat the greenhouse effect. “It’s not a liberal or conservative thing,” he says.[it’s] “These feelings won't last long.”
Then we go back to 1977, when President Carter’s response to an urgent government report about “the potential for catastrophic climate change” was to give a “bad talk” on television, urging the public to curb “the wasteful use of resources” in the face of “a problem unprecedented in our history.” In response, people on the street seemed willing to make changes and sacrifices for the common good.
But that mood changed by the end of the Carter administration, as frustration over falling oil production (and rising prices) after the Iranian revolution exposed the extent of Americans’ dependence on gas. While Reagan blamed the outgoing administration for “the catastrophe we call the energy crisis,” he came into office promising abundant drilling. He also worked to cut oil regulation and solar energy programs. He also chose Bush as his vice president, a Connecticut man who “moved to Texas and made his fortune in oil.”
But eight years later, Bush was campaigning for the presidency as “environmental president,” apparently with a genuine desire to address the climate-change concerns that had been mounting in the meantime. He appointed an avowed “green” William K. Reilly of the World Wildlife Fund to head the Environmental Protection Agency. But he also appointed the conservative “ideological warrior” John Sununu as his chief of staff; it soon became clear who had the most influence.
Much of the broader drama in “The White House Effect” comes from the sinking feeling generated by the cleverly assembled archives (including leaked White House and corporate data), as pressure from the administration’s corporate allies gradually pushes it back from its alleged environmental consciousness. Particularly frustrating is the ploy to “dilute” or contradict the consensus wisdom of legitimate scientific research. One prominent apocalyptic report is edited against the will of its respected author. “Experts” begin to infiltrate the media to downplay climate concerns, prompting populist voices like Rush Limbaugh to rail against “environmental imperialism”—not to mention that most of these authorities turn out to be paid stooges of the oil, gas, and coal industries.
But with Bush and Sununu denying any shift, Reilly has begun to look like a “dead man walking,” having to make unconvincing excuses for the administration at international summits where the United States is the largest—and sometimes the only—holdout among nations willing to commit to carbon-reduction pledges. The white noise of obfuscation (who can really tell when this so-called “crisis” will hit?), misinformation (claims that green policies are “anti-growth, anti-jobs, anti-American”), and outright misinformation (such as “humans are not the cause of global warming”) creates enough cover to shift his focus so that the whole issue moves from “the scientific domain to the political domain,” as Al Gore put it as early as 1984.
Meanwhile, disasters of all kinds, from the Exxon Valdez oil spill to Hurricane Hugo to the Gulf War, continue to mount, each in its own way underscoring the dangers of continued reliance on fossil fuels. Needless to say, the 30 years since Bush’s first presidency have seen more and more of the same. Yet the rhetoric of denial has only grown louder, even as each new year seems to turn out to be the hottest on record.
The White House Effect captures the impact of that gap in devastating brevity at its end. First, we see mournful interview clips with Reilly and the late climate scientist Stephen Schneider, as they lament the paths not taken. Then there’s the simple visual rhetoric of a chart showing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels since human civilization began around 10,000 B.C.: a nearly flat line that rises dramatically with the birth of commercial oil drilling about 150 years ago. It’s an image that makes the cynics’ logic look ridiculous.
The absence of any outside commentary in what is essentially a compilation film reinforces the directors’ compelling argument. (Two of them, longtime collaborators Cohen and Shenk, also have a second nonfiction film out for Telluride this year, “In Waves and War,” about combat-related PTSD.) The result leaves little doubt that the discourse on climate change, once a bipartisan issue, has been deliberately manipulated to encourage uninformed skepticism and protect the interests of corporations that continue to make exorbitant profits at the expense of the planet.
This story draws viewers in like a slow-burning, if fast-paced, train wreck. A powerful factor that ties the pile of events, characters, and potentially enormous conflicts together is the increasingly melancholic urgency of Ariel Marks' original string-driven score.
