First there was the morning where we watched people cross planks of wood to unload heavy baskets of coal on ships. Then came the brickyards where people worked the entire day with heavy machinery, detrimental to their health.
Now I found myself in the alleyways behind the river. Closer to the waterfront, I saw people climbing up to old ships that appeared abandoned, pulling apart their panels and harvesting scraps of metal from the remains.
In the alleyways, people were working with those metal sheets and scraps. People worked with torches, hammers, and bare hands. Proper gear to keep people safe was unavailable. Middle-school aged boys worked with welding equipment.
A group of a dozen men walked by all awkwardly carrying a giant sheet of metal. A few couldn’t keep up with its weight and it nearly landed on several exposed feet.
I couldn’t believe it. These were absolutely the most difficult jobs I’ve seen on the planet. And they existed because of climate change. Farmers who lost land were desperate for new ways to feed their family.
I couldn’t take all this in without wanting to renew my commitment to a healthy climate. No one person has the solution. If someone did, it would be Shohei Ohtani and not me. But I have little bits of influence, resources, and skills I can put to some use, and it would just be wrong to sleep on that.
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