Screening at the Telluride Film Festival, this powerful documentary, composed entirely of archival footage, shows how US policy on climate change has shifted from earnest good intentions to outright denial.
How Trump is Hurdling the Fight Against Climate Change
Most people probably don’t remember “global warming” or whatever you want to call it being a significant issue — let alone a political pawn — for the last decade or two. But as “The White House Effect” points out, about 35 years ago it was both high in the public eye and not politically divisive. There was a moment when decisive action could have been taken early…and that moment has passed.
Set at the Telluride Film Festival, this documentary is both riveting and damning, constructed entirely from archival footage by directors Bonnie Cohen, Pedro Kos, and Jon Shenk, who largely wind back the clock to Bush’s first presidency: a single term that began with the proclamation of lofty environmental ideals. It ended with the loss of key opportunities and the deliberately seeded beginnings of an anti-science denialism that continues to doom progress despite all the real-world evidence of escalating climate change. While it likely won’t have the audience or impact of “An Inconvenient Truth,” this should be an equally essential viewing experience for anyone interested in the future of humanity—especially as heat waves, fires, hurricanes, and the like have swelled to a near-perpetual weather crisis.
The key interpolation is a kind of slide-rule timeline graph, “Effect” begins with a flurry of news and pop culture flashbacks to 1988, when “the dreaded greenhouse effect” was much discussed amid record-breaking droughts and soaring temperatures in the U.S. During a Senate hearing on the matter, a NASA climatologist says there’s no doubt about the cause and effect of carbon emissions on the atmosphere. Another expert notes that such warnings have been voiced in the scientific community for 15 years. Incoming POTUS George H.W. Bush embraces the reality of global warming, saying “the White House effect” is powerful enough to combat global warming. He also says, “It’s not a liberal or conservative thing… [it’s] the corporate agenda of the future.” Those sentiments won’t last long.
