When a Kenyan farmer expressed views contrary to the climate change narrative, a BBC reporter took him to task for sharing from his own experience and research.

By Thi Thuy Van Dinh | Published by Brownstone Institute

Summary

On June 15, 2024, BBC Climate Disinformation reporter Marco Silva published what has been described as a “hit piece” on Kenyan farmer and agricultural engineer Jusper Machogu for advocating fossil fuels for the prosperity of Kenya.

Mr. Silva in his commentary labels Mr. Machogu, a former Greenpeace activist, as a climate-change denier who promotes controversial views online in support of his “Fossil Fuels for Africa” campaign to a significant following. This critique of Mr. Silva’s article for the Brownstone Institute by author Thi Thuy Van Dinh (LLM, PhD) argues that Mr. Silva’s work was filled with ad hominem attacks, and questions why a journalist in a fossil fuel-powered, wealthy country like the U.K. should criticize a young farmer from an energy-starved region.

She writes:

Clearly, the reporter doesn’t seem to think that Mr Machogu has the right to carry out his own research and make tweets about that. I don’t understand why a BBC journalist can have freedom of expression but a Kenyan farmer cannot.

What is wrong with Mr Machogu’s posting about “farmer content” like “weeding his land, planting garlic or picking avocados” in rural Kisii (southwest Kenya)? Aren’t we in the era of social media influencers, of those many who make videos about their lives, their workouts, their gardening, their pets, or their exotic vacations and conferences? 

Mr. Machogu, in a blog dedicated to his efforts on Substack, writes:

Marco [Silva] expects me to live in grass thatched house! I don’t he drives to work and flies to climate conventions with a weekly budget of over $9000 in a week- business class flights, 5 star hotels, enjoy 🦞, etc.

Mr. Machogu argues cheap access to fossil fuels for African farmers will lead them out of poverty and toil. Without fossil fuels, he says, “Africa cannot develop“.

In an interview with The Epoch Times, he describes the climate policies Western nations, financial institutions and international bodies, such as the IMF and U.N., embrace for Africa as “climate colonialism”. He compares Africa’s development status to the United States in the 1800s but a U.S. denied the transformation of an industrial revolution. Western leaders, he says, are hypocritical.

“These people are consuming lots of fossil fuels—even Obama. If you look at Obama’s house, it’s a big, big house without solar panels—the same thing with this other guy, Al Gore. Al Gore has got a big, big house. And if you look at his house, he doesn’t have solar panels. So, these people say these things with a hidden agenda. And I think it boils down to Africa not developing and depopulation. Just that. It’s so simple.”

Read the original, full-text version of the critique by Thi Thuy Van Dinh at the publisher’s website here