The Republican presidential nominee stands in front of a crowd in Michigan and promises that he will work to combat climate change, no matter how difficult the naysayers think that will be.

In todays political climate this scenario sounds like an absurd fantasy, but as the documentary The White House Effect points out, it actually happened. In 1988 then-presidential candidate George H.W. Bush campaigned on environmental issues as the country was just beginning to understand the so-called greenhouse effect. In a speech in August of that year, he told a crowd of supporters, Those who think were powerless to do anything about this greenhouse effect are forgetting about the White House effect and as president, I intend to do something about it. Using only archival material, the movie which began streaming on Netflix on Oct. 31 chronicles how Bush eventually backed away from that vow over the course of his presidency, a decision that ultimately had profound consequences. Through White House documents and videos, TV news clips, footage of Exxon board meetings and other material, the film depicts how Bushs first chief of staff John Sununu and the oil industry urged the president to pump he brakes, while Bushs conservationist head of the Environmental Protection Agency Bill Reilly fought to push the president towards action.

Audiences know how the story ends the Republican party did not, ultimately, become a champion of environmental regulation but may be less familiar with the personal and political battles that ultimately led Bush to back down. I think for me what was most surprising was how much we actually had a chance, says Pedro Kos, one of three directors that worked on the film.

The Hollywood Reporter interviewed Kos and co-director Jon Shenk (third director Bonni Cohen could not attend) about the genesis of the project, their archival material and why they feel the subject matter is the stuff of political thrillers.

How did you conceive of this film in the first place?

Shenk: A bunch of us documentary filmmakers who had worked together on climate projects before read this article back in 2018 by Nathaniel Rich in the New York Times called Losing Earth. It was basically a portrait of 1980s climate politics and science. And the simultaneous light bulb went off in all of our heads: Maybe theres a historical story to be told here thats really dramatic and character-based. And that [Times] story got optioned by Apple to make a fictionalized series. And we all kind of gulped and sulked and went our separate ways, but we couldnt get it out of our head and ultimately we started talking about, well, what could we do? Because we are all Pedro and I and Bonnie and Josh and Noah [Stahl, a producer] very passionate about climate stories and constantly trying to figure out new ways to tell the story, and this just seemed too enticing to let go of. In general, we came up with this crazy idea of why dont we tell the entire history of climate change and science and politics and industry and everything that it entails, and do it only in archival film? So that when audiences watch it, itll have a lack of the current-day politics and tribalism about it and itll feel more like an untainted view of just how history unfolded. Thats kind of how it started. Of course, it evolved from there, but thats how it started.

How did you then home in on this moment in the George H.W. Bush presidency as the way to convey some of these ideas?

Shenk: Im smiling because this was such not a straightforward process. We really did bite off more than we could chew. We collected something like 14,000 individual archival assetsit really was a herculean task. And to say that we were lost in the forest is an understatement. We had cuts of this film that started in the 1830s with early American photography of natural resources and went from there. The Bush drama, where John Sununu, the chief of staff, goes head to head with Bill Riley, who Bush appoints as his environmental chief at the EPA, was part of it. After watching long assemblies, we realized, okay, what is it that film can do that articles and books cant do? And [what] became obvious that the emotional heart of the story was the human drama that took place during those years where these guys were fighting kind of for the soul of George Bush on this issue. And thats what you see play out in the film. Its the stuff of political thrillers. It really is just an amazing drama.

Kos: We started finding these man-on-the-street interviews, and we realized that the American public are also characters in this story. There is a real arc starting in 1988, where the film begins, and its an election year and both candidates of the two major parties are running on pro-environmental agendas. And why is that? Its because there was a universal acceptance almost that something needed to be done to tackle climate change. And then you fast forward four years later, you have a completely divided electorate where half is questioning the science as communist socialist propaganda, and the other half accepts it how do we get there? For us it was really incredible to see the evolution of the public opinion in such a visceral way. I think thats what happens when you really let the history speak for itself and compress time into a 90-minute film and you can really track those larger changes.

Was any of the archival imagery you used particularly hard to land or secure?

Kos: One of the things that was not hard to get, it just required patience and thoroughness, were a lot of the materials that we uncovered at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library in Houston. It was a real treasure trove. We had access to these materials, but it just takes time and patience to go through everything. So the videos that you see in the Oval Office, for example, John Sununu being sworn in; there happened to be photographers videoing that. The moment where theyre discussing the Exxon Valdez spilled before the press is let in those are real glimpses pulling back the curtain. And I think one of the things that showed is how much Bush really listened to and valued Bill Riley, the EPA administrator. And the other thing that we saw at the Bush library is the internal correspondence that gave an extraordinary glimpse behind the curtain of the machinations of John Sununu and all [his] correspondence with the oil industry. I mean, that was all at President Bushs library.

Were there any particularly surprising moments for you in making this film?

Kos: I think for me what was most surprising was how much we actually had a chance, like how Bush was there in the beginning, how much desire actually he had to do something about it. In that documentation that we show from the White House, from the administration, he says, lets move on climate. And if you talk to Bill Riley, hell say that he felt that he had his ear, that he had the respect. And so we had a chance, there was a chance, and its something that was not a foregone conclusion in a way.

Shenk: To really try to win the election in 1992, [Bush] essentially went back on his promise about solving global warming. We literally have a line in the film, Bush is still supportive of the environment, but he just has changed his mind about global warming. And that capitulation at the time, you get a sense like Bush might not have known the repercussions of that. He mightve been thinking, Oh, if I get reelected, I could revisit this or Maybe well have time to deal with this in the future, myself or somebody else. But really what it gave rise to, what his behavior allowed is this kind of denialist machine to calcify and get a hold on swaying public opinion. If he hadnt done that, and Bill Riley says this in a later piece of archival, if Bush had not made that decision, where could we be today?

I was going to ask what your take is on why George H.W. Bush ultimately distanced himself from efforts to combat climate change.

Kos: Thats the period where the fossil fuel industry really circled their wagons and began the very concerted effort to change, at least partially, public opinion. [Thats] something that they succeeded in doing [as well as] politicizing the issue and therefore undermining Bushs political base. The oil industry targeted what ended up being Republican voters and shaping that public opinion there. So I think what happened was that to help win an election in an already very difficult political landscape for him with the economic recession, the false binary was created: Its the economy or the environment. Sununu and other advisors played into that and I think thats what [Bush] saw, the base wasnt there. It was in a certain way for political survival. [But] I think he did, at the end of the day, have concern about the issue.

This interview has been edited for lenth and clarity.