Three decades ago, the world was poised to stop global warming. Using exclusively archival maA riveting look at a key moment in the history of the climate crisis, THE WHITE HOUSE EFFECT from directors Bonni Cohen, Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk travels back in time to document how a crucial opportunity to take real action on global warming was not just squandered but deliberately undermined.Woven entirely of archival material, the documentary focuses on the pivotal years of the George H.W. Bush administration—1988 to 1992—when the entire country was waking up to the reality of global warming and Bush had pledged to use “the White House effect” to tackle it.
Woven entirely of archival material, the documentary focuses on the pivotal years of the George H.W. Bush administration—1988 to 1992—when the entire country was waking up to the reality of global warming and Bush had pledged to use “the White House effect” to tackle it.Infuriating and irrefutable, THE WHITE HOUSE EFFECT tracks cause and effect with devastating precision to reveal just how hollow that promise became as Bush finds himself increasingly caught between his chief of staff John Sununu and industry power brokers on one side and his EPA chief Bill Reilly and climatologists on the other.
As the world prepares for the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, Bush faces mounting pressure to make a decision that will change the course of history—culminating with the U.S. undermining a global agreement to set hard limits on emissions, setting the stage for the increasingly hot, dangerous, and polarized future we all now face.
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Bonni Cohen is an American documentary film producer and director. She is the co-founder of Actual Films and has produced and directed an array of award-winning films. Most recently, she produced the Oscar-nominated film Lead Me Home, which premiered at the 2021 Telluride Film Festival and is a Netflix Original
Pedro Kos is a director and Emmy Award®-winning editor. His feature documentary directorial debut Bending the Arc (co-directed with Kief Davidson) premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Kos’s prior work includes editing Jehane Noujaim’s Academy Award®-nominee The Square, Lucy Walker’s Academy Award®-nominee Waste Land, Ms. Walker’s The Crash Reel, Jon Shenk’s The Island President, Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee and Gayatri Roshan’s Elemental. Kos is from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and received his B.A. in Theater Directing from Yale University.
JON SHENK is an Academy Award®-nominated and Emmy Award-winning Director and Cinematographer, as well as a founder of Actual Films. Recent work includes directing In Waves & War with his partner Bonni Cohen, and directing and producing The White House Effect – both of which premiered at the 2024 Telluride Film Festival. Jon also was the Cinematographer for Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore which premiered at Sundance 2025. Prior he co-directed the Oscar®-nominated short film Lead Me Home, which premiered at Telluride and is a Netflix Original. Previously, Shenk and Bonni Cohen co-directed Athlete A (Netflix), which won an Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Documentary and was nominated for five Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, winning for Best Sports Documentary.
