Unit 02 A Hard Life

Unit 2 Page 20 READING exercise 3 THEY MADE A DIFFERENCE THE SLAVE TRADE From the 16th to the 19th century, millions of people in Africa were taken from their homes and forced into lives of slavery. By the late 18th century many people had realised this was wrong and wanted to stop it. These people became known as 'abolitionists' and together they helped demolish one of the cruellest systems in the history of our world. Here are two of the men and women who made a huge difference. One day in November 1759, the British ship Arundel was sailing the West Indies when a slave ship approached it, begging for help. Many of the slaves on the ship had died of disease and the others were living in horrible conditions. One person from the Arundel went to help – a young doctor called James Ramsay. He was horrified by what he saw and he never forgot this experience. Soon after this, he went to work on the island of St Kitts in the Caribbean. There he enraged local businessmen as he helped the slaves who worked for them and treated them for injuries and disease. He also worked as a church minister and he insisted on opening his church up to slaves as well as the white people. When Ramsay returned to England, he wrote books about his experiences. The vivid details he included shocked many people. He was also a huge influence on William Wilberforce, the leader of the anti-slavery movement in the UK and a politician who worked tirelessly to smash the laws and eventually succeeded in doing just that. Mary Prince was born in Bermuda in 1788. As her mother and father were slaves she was a slave, too. She was sold a total of four times in her life. The first time with the rest of her family, but when she was 12, she was separated from them and went to work as a maid. She had been working at this job for a few months when she ran away to be with her mother, but she was soon captured and sent back. The third time she was sold to work in the salt ponds. The work was long and hard and the sun caused blisters on her body. She was also treated cruelly by her owners, who often struck her for the smallest of things. When she was 40, new owners took her to England. Slavery was illegal in the UK, so she was free to go and work with the abolitionists. In 1831, the Anti-Slavery Society published a book about her life story called The History of Mary Prince. Lots of people read the book and it helped many change their minds about slavery.

Page 22 PRONUNCIATION exercise 1 Strong winds spread the sparks through the streets. Stella's got straight hair and stripes on her skirt. Stewart sprayed his phone with a special screen cleaner. Page 22 PRONUNCIATION exercise 3 Strong winds spread the sparks through the streets. Stella's got straight hair and stripes on her skirt. Stewart sprayed his phone with a special screen cleaner. Page 23 LISTENING exercise 7 and 8 They once ruled the skies of the Eastern United States. People reported huge flocks of up to a billion, making the sky above darker for hours as they flew by. In the mid-1800s, the passenger pigeon was perhaps the most numerous bird in the world. Little more than 50 years later, just one remained, a female named Martha, who died all alone in 1914 at the Cincinnati Zoo. To tell us more about the tragic story of the passenger pigeon we are joined by bird expert Chris Oddie. Thank you, Sarah. So what happened to the passenger pigeon? How could a species go from being so numerous to none in around half a century? Well, what happened to the passenger pigeons was, in a word – us. Humans had always hunted these birds, but in the 19th century the number of killings exploded. They were also the victim of advances in technology. Firstly the telegraph, which allowed people to get messages across the country quickly, allowed people to report where the pigeons were and secondly, the new railway system allowed hunters to get to these places easily and start killing the birds. But why did they want to do that? Well, passenger pigeons were big business. The dead birds were sent all over the US by train and sold to restaurants or in markets. Did no one try to stop this? There was some concern and it led to the US government making one of its first environmental laws to protect animal species. It actually became law in 1900 – the last year a passenger pigeon was seen in the wild. So it was too late for the passenger pigeon. Yes, sadly. So is there anything we can learn from this story? Well, if there is anything good to have come out of this, it is that the passenger pigeon has become a symbol of the damage humans are capable of doing. I hope it would be impossible for such a disastrous event to ever happen again. Though sadly we do still see species that are threatened with extinction because of human activity. We need to remember, this Earth doesn't just belong to us and we share it with billions of other life forms. It is our responsibility to make sure we protect others.

Page 24 READING exercise 2 and 3 A short history of bathing in the UK These days most people in the UK have access to hot water by simply turning on a tap. People know how important it is to keep clean and take baths and showers daily. But of course, it wasn't always so easy. In medieval times most people knew that washing your body with water was a good thing to do and there were instruction books that explained the importance of keeping your body clean. Some, though, offered rather strange advice, such as to avoid taking a bath in the summer or not to take long baths because they would make you fat. In the palaces and houses of the rich, people enjoyed bathing in a wooden bathtub that servants filled with hot water. They would often add perfumes and flower petals to make the water smell nice. Having your own private bath was a sign of importance and King John, for example, used to take his bathtub with him whenever he travelled. Most people had no bath of their own, but they might visit one of the many public baths that started to appear in most cities by then. These were often beside bakeries, and the heat from baking the bread was used to warm up the water. People with no access to public baths would wash using only cold water and a cloth. When the weather was warm enough, they would jump in the nearest river for a wash. By the early 1800s there were serious concerns about the dreadful conditions in crowded cities and people started to recognise the importance of hygiene. Some now bought metal bathtubs for their homes, although for most people there was no bathroom and the water still had to be carried in from outside and heated up. Many people still didn't use to have baths in their homes, but some could afford to make a weekly visit to the new public baths that opened in the 19 century. At the same time, bathing in the sea became popular as people looked to saltwater to help cure skin problems. Bathing habits changed for good in the late 19th century when pipes could carry water directly into homes. Bathing became a lot easier and people started taking many more baths. However, many homes in the UK, especially those in rural areas, had to wait until as late as the 1960s before they had running water directly connected to them.

Page 26 Culture exercise 2 CREATIVE CLIMATE SOLUTIONS Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet. As temperatures increase, the ice caps and glaciers around the world are starting to melt, meaning sea levels will get higher. We are already seeing the results of climate change with an increase in extreme weather events such as hurricanes and wildfires and serious shortages of water. All over the world there are people living in difficult conditions. But difficult conditions often inspire creative solutions. Every year the Philippines are hit by huge tropical typhoons. These violent storms often kill hundreds of people and cause billions of dollars in damage to the islands. In an attempt to fight back, one company has come up with a house that is designed to stand up to the strongest of winds. The houses are built in a dome shape and the curved surfaces are much better at surviving in storms than traditional flat roofs and walls. They are also better at surviving earthquakes. Wildfires often cause massive destruction in many places around the world, destroying land, homes and lives. In 2015 bush fires burned down vegetation in a large area of South Australia leaving nothing but bare earth. This made the land difficult to farm as strong winds blew the soil away. A farmer called Brian Fischer had a brilliant idea to stop the problem. With the help of his sons he ploughed the fields in spirals. This means that it doesn't matter which way the wind blows because it can never blow away the soil. One man who wanted to tackle global warming directly was inventor Eduardo Gold. He used the idea that light colours reflect the sunlight to try to stop mountains in the South American Andes from heating up and losing their glaciers. His plan was simple; with the help of a few friends he started painting the mountains white in the hope it would keep their surfaces cooler. Although his idea was included in the World Bank's '100 ideas to save the planet' in 2009, Gold died in 2014 and his work had limited success. A lack of water is one of the most serious problems we can face. In the Himalayan Desert water is very difficult to find during the spring months. To help solve this problem, the Ice Stupa project has come up with a very clever solution. In winter, a pipe takes water from higher up in the mountains down to the desert, where it rushes out as a fountain. Because it is so cold in the desert, the water freezes and makes frozen towers of ice. In the spring the ice melts giving the farmers the water they need for their land.

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