Trending: The Kenyan influencer championing climate denial
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 12 June 2024
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jusper Machogu is a farmer from south-western Kenya who describes himself as a “climate sceptic”. He wrongly claims that climate change is a “scam” or a “hoax” designed to hold Africa back. On social media, he has also become known as a staunch defender of fossil fuel exploration in Africa. His views have caught the eye of those in the West who, like him, deny the overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming. They have helped him grow his following and spread his message globally. But, in doing so, has Mr Machogu unwittingly become a tool for the fossil fuel industry? How dangerous is the message of social media influencers like him?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Here is tea and that's how we plug tea. Two leaves, one, two and a bad. |
| 0:08.0 | This is 29 year old Jasper Machogo. He's a farmer and he lives in Kisei southwest Kenya. |
| 0:15.0 | Once you get used to eat you don't have to count one too bad. It's so easy. |
| 0:20.0 | On social media he posts videos like these ones offering a window into his day-to-day life. |
| 0:26.7 | So this is what people do throughout the day. |
| 0:29.0 | You can see Jasper weeding, cutting corn, peeking avocados. |
| 0:33.6 | Yeah, that is it. |
| 0:34.8 | It's a typical day in Kisi. |
| 0:36.6 | But make no mistake, Jasper is not your average farmer. |
| 0:55.1 | His farming videos may get clicks, likes and retweets, but it's the fringe views he shares online that have supercharged his profile. We have people cooking with firewood and you're telling us that we should care about climate change. |
| 1:00.0 | What is climate change anyway? |
| 1:01.4 | A hoax, a scam at least according to Jasper's tweets. |
| 1:06.2 | He wrongly claims that climate change is not man-made, |
| 1:10.0 | or real for that matter, but rather a ploy by the West to keep Africa poor. |
| 1:15.6 | Our fossil fuel infrastructure, which is being drilled by the anti-humanist, |
| 1:21.4 | neo-colonial, UN, IMF and World Bank. |
| 1:25.0 | Jaspers got more than 25,000 followers on X, formerly Twitter, |
| 1:30.0 | and he has got the eye of many in the West who like him deny man-made climate change. |
| 1:37.0 | Canadian author Jordan Peterson tweeted a talk Jasper gave at a cryptocurrency conference. Jasper even pops up in a new British documentary that denies the existence of a climate |
| 1:49.6 | emergency. |
| 1:50.6 | But could there be more to his activism than meets the eye. |
| 1:55.0 | I really hope that it's just not being used by climate deniers to penetrate to the African |
... |
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