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Climate change: Lessons from a safety truck

Dear editor,

If you are concerned about climate change and want to share your concerns with others you have a problem. You know that climate change is changing everything but you don’t know when and how it will change things.  In a word, you don’t know what is coming down the road.

Our struggle is a bit like driving on a single lane highway and finding ourselves behind a large truck we want to pass. We peek out to see the oncoming traffic and duck back in; we peek out and duck back in again. This can go on and on. It would be great if we could see the road ahead.

I thought of this situation when I saw the video a friend sent me.  It is about the Samsung Safety Truck in Argentina. The country has hundreds of single lane highways and averages about one accident an hour.  Many of these are caused by drivers trying to overtake and pass vehicles in front of them.

Samsung’s idea was to put a camera on the front of their transport trucks to show the road ahead. They installed four outdoor monitors, and turned the back of the truck into a huge screen. The camera projects a picture of the road ahead onto the screen.  It works both day and night undoubtedly saving lives.

The lessons?

Though we can’t predict the future, we can get some understanding from the research about what lies ahead. We must communicate this understanding in plain language using the best modern technology available to us. And our communications must respond to felt, unmet need.  They must help people, families and organizations respond to what is coming down the road ahead of them.

Hopefully Samsung’s genius will inspire other companies to come up with innovative ideas for saving lives and the planet.

Mike Bell

Comox