The Campaign against the Climate

Mads Ellesøe Denemarken 2020 59 min.

In 1988 the world basically agreed: climate change is a big problem. That year, Republican presidential candidate George H.W. Bush stated loud and clear that as president he would address the issue. But not long after that, everything came to a standstill and climate deniers became more vocal. This staggering investigative documentary shows that this was no accident, but the result of a well-orchestrated campaign funded by major oil companies behind the scenes.

DOCVILLE 2021
Spectrum

Investigative journalist Mads Ellesøe unravels the complex web of groups that started to deny the disastrous consequences of the climate crisis around 1988. They looked for all kinds of ways to systematically question scientific research and the predictions of climate experts. And they went very far. There was an actual campaign to glorify CO2 with the astonishing slogan “CO2. They call it pollution. We call it Life ” Unsurprisingly, some of the most influential anti-climate think tanks have been funded by the largest fossil fuel producers. It all started when George H.W. Bush - not your average eco warrior - promised that if he got to the White House, he would tackle the problem of global warming. The oil industry feared the worst and embarked on all kinds of dark machinations behind the scenes with only one goal: to reverse the consensus that there is a climate crisis and to halt or at least slow down all efforts to address it.