【正文】 dvertising their products as ecocertified. Around the world, many wood panies have adopted new, ecologically friendly practices in order to receive ecocertification. However, it is unlikely that wood panies in the United States will do the same, for several reasons. First, American consumers are exposed to so much advertising that they would not value or even pay attention to the ecocertification label. Because so many mediocre products are labeled 39。39。t treat all advertising the distinguish between advertising claims that panies make about their own products and claims made by independent certification agencies. Americans have a lot of confidence in independent agencies. Thus ecologicallyminded Americans are likely to react very favorably to wood products ecologically certified by independent organization with a intenational reputation for trustworthiness. Second point ,of course it is true that American consumers care a lot about price ,who doesn39。 decisions only when the price of one peting products is much higher or lower than the the difference between two products is small ,say , less than 5 percent,as is the case with certified wood, American often do choose on factories other than Americans are being increasingly convinced of the value of preserving and protecting the environment. And third, US Wood panies should definitely pay attention what is going on in the wood business internationally. Not because of foreign consumers but because of foreign petitors. As I just told you, there is a good chance that many American consumers will be interested in ecocertified products, and guess why? If American panies are slow capturing those consumers, you can be sure that foreign panies will soon start crowding into the American markets, offering ecocerfied wood that domestic panies don39。s account of the Chevalier39。s memoir is pretty accurate overall, and is, by and large, a reliable historical source Let39。t mean that the Chevalier was poor. Let me explain. We know that in Switzerland, the Chevalier spent huge amounts of money on parties and gambling, and he had wealth. But it was a kind of property you have to seil first to get money. So it usually took a few days to convert his assets into actual money. So when he ran out of cash, he had to borrow some while he was waiting for his money to arrive, but that39。s conversation. Evidently the Chevalier kept his notes of these conversations for many years and referred to them when writing the memoir. Witnesses who lived with the Chevalier in his later life confirmed that he regularly consulted notes and journals when posing the memoir. Third, the Chevalier39。s main source of power, the internalbustion engine. By far the most promising alternative source of energy for cars is the hydrogenbased fuelcell engine, which uses hydrogen to create electricity that, in turn, powers the car. Fuelcell engines have several advantages over internalbustion engines and will probably soon replace them. One of the main problems with the internalbustion engine is that it relies on petroleum, either in the form of gasoline or diesel fuel. Petroleum is a finite resource。s pollution problems. An unavoidable byproduct of burning oil is carbon dioxide, and carbon dioxide harms the environment. On the other hand, the only byproduct of fuelcell engines is water. Third, fuelcell engines will soon be economically petitive because people will spend less money to operate a fuelcell engine than they will to operate an internalbustion engine. This is true for one simple reason: a fuelcell automobile is nearly twice as efficient in using its fuel as an automobile powered by an internalbustion engine is. In other words, the fuelcell powered car requires only half the fuel energy that the internalbustion powered car does to go the same distance. Listening Professor: The reading is correct in pointing out the problems associated with oilpowered cars. Yes, oil is a finite resource, and yes, burning oil harms the environment. However, the reading is way too optimistic in its assessment of hydrogenbased fuelcell engines. Hydrogen is not the solution to these problems. First, hydrogen is not as easily available as the passage indicates. Although it39。s not directly useable in that form. For using a fuelcell engine, hydrogen must first be obtained in a pure liquid state. This pure liquid hydrogen is a highly artificial substance. It39。s required for that! So hydrogen is not such a practical and easily available substance, is it? Second, using hydrogen would not solve the pollution problems associated with cars. Why? Producing pure hydrogen creates a lot of pollution. To get pure hydrogen from water or natural gas, you have to use a purification process that requires lots of energy that39。t necessarily be any cost savings when you consider how expensive it is to manufacture the fuelcell engine. That39。t undergo the chemical reaction that produces the electricity to power the automobile. All the efforts to replace platinum with a cheaper material have so far been unsuccessful.  Reading The sea otter is a small mammal that lives in waters along the western coast of North America from California to Alaska. When some sea otter populations off the Alaskan coast started rapidly declining a few years ago, it caused much concern because sea otters play an important ecological role in the coastal ecosystem. Experts started investigating the cause of the decline and quickly realized that there were two possible explanations: environmental pollution or attacks by predators. Initially, the pollution hypothesis seemed the more likely of the two. The first reason why pollution seemed the more likely cause was that there were known sources of it along the Alaskan coast, such as oil rigs and other sources of industrial chemical pollution. Water samples from the area revealed increased levels of chemicals that could decrease the otters3