News

The opening scenes of “The White House Effect” feel like a nostalgic stroll through an era in which every new problem wasn’t immediately designated as a culture war battlefield. A quaint time when the lack of partisan media outlets, online misinformation, and excessive reliance on small dollar fundraising made for an electoral climate where politicians were, at the very least, serious about giving off the illusion that they took their jobs seriously. When the issue of man-made climate change first became a public issue, the rhetoric from Republican and Democratic politicians was largely the same. Everyone acknowledged that there was a problem to be solved through some form of federal government intervention, they merely disagreed about who was most qualified to do it.

Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk, and Pedro Kos’ new film aims to track the role of the American executive branch in shaping climate policy through the ’70s,...

The White House Effect, Bonni Cohen, Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk’s new documentary, doesn’t make viewers wait long for its most shocking moment.

In a small press conference in August of 1988, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush makes a bold declaration about stopping global warming.

“It can be done and we must do it and these issues know no ideology,” Bush says.

He goes on to observe that when it comes to the greenhouse effect, those doubting the ability to make tangible change have forgotten about one thing: the White House Effect. By that, Bush is referring to the government’s ability to make policy changes to impact the public good.

In this moment, if you didn’t live through that period, you might be flummoxed enough to believe that, as he claimed himself, Bush would be the “environmental candidate” for the presidency.

Spoiler alert: He was not.

Spoiler alert: Those issues did not,...