Zheng Liu

ENGL 3301
July 31, 14
Project 2: Critical Appraisal

Introduction
The financial crises in Asia have raised a controversial discuss in the past two
decades: How does the financial crisis intend to affect the environment? I chose two
articles based on this doubt that examined the consequences on the environment resulted
by the both financial crises happened in 1997 and 2008. In Shades of Green in East
Asia: The Impact of Financial Crises on The Environment written by Lorraine Elliott
examined the impact of both financial crises in 1997 and the current global financial
crisis on the environment in East Asia, and there are not only negative but also positive
impacts on the environment. , For comparison purpose I went on the Google Scholar,
searched for this article, then found The Asian Financial Crises Is It Good For Global
Environment? written by Toufiq A. Siddiqi showed under related articles. This article
is also based on the same topic, and author Siddiqi (2000) believes that every dark cloud
has silver lining, which is tempted to expect the reduction in industrial activity will lead
to a lessening of damage to the environment, at the country as well as global levels.(p.
1).
Two authors of these articles are authorities in their fields; however, they may
sees this problem from the different angle. Lorraine Elliott, the Professor of International
Relations in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University and
Visiting Senior Fellow in the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore. Her research focuses on the politics, institutions
and ethics of regional and global environmental governance. Under this topic, compare to
the other author, she focuses more on financial issues and relationships among different
regions when she studies the environment. Toufiq A. Siddiqi is an analyst of climate
change, energy and environment from Honolulu who has been working for the past 25
years on the interaction between energy policies and climate change. He was a consultant
to the United Nations Development Program, the World Bank, the Asian Development
Bank, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. He is currently an adjunct
senior fellow in the research program at the East-West Center and adjunct graduate
faculty in the geography department at the University of Hawaii at Mnoa. In this article,
he pursues professional awareness of the problem, gives rigorous description to his
viewpoint, which perfectly supports the former authors conclusions as well.
The article written by Lorraine Elliott was published on the journal contemporary
politics, this journal publishes rigorous analysis and articulation of contemporary issues,
controversies and theoretical debates - whatever is significant in theory or practice in a
world where events themselves are driving towards a broader definition of politics.
Contemporary Politics is primarily aimed at academics working in the field of political
studies. It is an indispensable tool for opinion makers, practitioners of politics, academics
and students. And the article written by Professor Toufiq A. Siddiqi is published on
Global Environmental Change 10 (2000) 1-7, which is a peer-reviewed international
journal publishing high quality, theoretically and empirically rigorous articles, which
advance knowledge about the human and policy dimensions of global environmental
change. And the audience for these two journals is professionals in the discipline of
environment and climate. The former one is more targeted on people who is interested in
political studies since the article may involves certain material or evidence that shows
political and international significance. And the latter one is targeted on people who
interested to the drivers, consequences and management of changes in: biodiversity and
ecosystem services, climate, coasts, food systems, land use and land cover, oceans, urban
areas, and water resources

Critical Appraisal
The authors purpose for writing under this topic are the same, because they are
willing to inform people about existing and impending impacts that already performed or
will perform to our living space. On the other hand, they are intended to warn people that
some man-made financial activities will cause damage to the environment.
The author Lorraine Elliott of the first article provided conclusions about the
environmental impacts of financial crises through investigation and research in her
article. She did this through two lines of inquiry, which are, exploring the impact on the
environment from three contractions in demand and production, in government
income and private capital, and in employment and livelihood choices (p. 168), and
looking into comparative examples and evidence of financial crises of 1997. And those
findings explained that the environment consequences of financial and economic
degradation and contraction are likely to be equivocal and at times counter-intuitive,
rather than entirely negative. In order to offer definitive conclusions, Lorraine Elliott
(2011) introduced that, The methodology adopted by many has involved an indirect or
proxy model which examines the impact of the financial crisis on the global and local
drivers of environmental degradation, on the assumption that if those drivers change, then
the environmental impact will also change (for the better or for the worse). (p.168). On
the other hand, the way that Professor Siddiqis article is build up differently, in his
article, he begins with introducing the general reasons that caused both financial crises,
and each following section of the article is divided into segments, that begins with the
general information of his conclusion, followed by how this conclusion is achieved, and
provided with arguments at the end of each section. In his demonstration, he used large
number of tables and figures to give his conclusions with ample evidence and clue, some
existing data he used or cited from other scientific literature are constrained by data
limitations and lack of and empirical evidence, then he did a lot of research and data
collecting work to reflect his conclusions accurately.
In the article, the author Lorraine Elliott introduced that the financial crises
impact the environment in a positive way, even though the good impact such as, decline
in the overall use of energy, reduction of green house gas emission is likely short-lived.
And in the other article, similar conclusions are made, Professor Siddiqi believes that
most of the impacts from financial crises affected on environment is on the positive way.
And this hypothesis is examined in his article focusing on the humans activity- use of
energy, which he believes has the largest impact on the environment. In 1997, the
financial crisis begins associated with floating of Thai currency, then rapidly spread to
Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries in Asia, and these countries have been
reported rate of growth considerably slowing down after many years of high economic
growth rate. Then the author found there is a good correlation between financial activities
and energy consumption, and the reduction of energy consumption might come with the
reduction of air pollution. However, the situation for the land and the ocean is likely to
have an adverse impact on the environment. For countries in the early industrialized stage
such as China and India have been reported the considerable loss of forest each year since
the demand for agricultural land.
On the contrary, I also found that there are differences and arguments exist in
their demonstration. In Professor Lorraine Elliotts article, the balance between positive
and negative impact are examined to be region specific. And she points that the impacts
caused by financial activities are sometimes counter-intuitive, which professor Siddiqi
does not give too much evidence to complete the proof. The countries in the region of
East Asia have faced a lot of difficulties on environment at the times of both financial
crises in 1997 and 2008. In 1997, the Asian development bank (1997) has reported, the
East Asia has become dirtier, less ecologically diverse and more environmentally
vulnerable(p. 199). In addition, the declining in environmental quality and the natural
resource degradation also reported in 2008. There is no doubt that, the economic and
financial factor in the crises times have considerable consequences for the climate
quality, natural resource, poverty line, and more, people in East Asia are now facing the
difficulties of stagnating per capita incomes, growing un/underemployment and rising
prices in staples such as food and energy, and increasing number of the poor.

Reflection and acknowledgment
In these two articles, authors are discussing more about environment but not the
finance field, and they not only inform people with their research, but also provide a
different way for financial people to look at the financial crisis, and it tells us how does
financial activities intend to affect the environment, which helps people in both fields to
know how we are going to deal with these impacts when crises happen in the future. And
the finance and economic policy reform may not only bring people positive impact but
also causes negative ones. And its significant to learn at a different point of view and
take sidestep to avoid from crucial decision mistakes.














Reference:
Elliott, Lorraine. 2011 "Shades of Green in East Asia: The Impact of Financial Crises on
the Environment." Contemporary Politics 17.2 (2011) 167-83. Web.
Global Environmental Change. (n.d.). Elsevier. Retrieved July 21, 2014, from
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/global-environmental-change/

Ulrike and Toufiq Siddiqi Student Travel Endowment. (n.d.). Shidler College of
Business. Retrieved July 21, 2014, from http://shidler.hawaii.edu/scholarship-
donors/ulrike-and-toufiq-siddiqi-student-travel-endowment-0

UNESCAP, 2010b. Economic and social survey of Asia and the Pacific 2010: sustaining
recovery and dynamism for inclusive development. Bangkok: UNESCAP.