Fueling Mexico

Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-1-108-83127-7
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 300 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 697 g

Reihe: Studies in Environment and History

Around the 1830s, parts of Mexico began industrializing using water and wood. By the 1880s, this model faced a growing energy and ecological bottleneck. By the 1950s, fossil fuels powered most of Mexico's economy and society. Looking to the north and across the Atlantic, late nineteenth-century officials and elites concluded that fossil fuels would solve Mexico's energy problem and Mexican industry began introducing coal. But limited domestic deposits and high costs meant that coal never became king in Mexico. Oil instead became the favored fuel for manufacture, transport, and electricity generation. This shift, however, created a paradox of perennial scarcity amidst energy abundance: every new influx of fossil energy led to increased demand. Germán Vergara shows how the decision to power the country's economy with fossil fuels locked Mexico in a cycle of endless, fossil-fueled growth - with serious environmental and social consequences.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Vergara, Germán

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Umweltpolitik, Umweltprotokoll
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Umweltökonomie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction: Energy, environment, and history; 2. 1850s: Solar society; 3. The nature of growth; 4. Searching for rocks; 5. The other revolution; 6. 1950s: Fossil-fueled society; Conclusion; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Vergara, Germán
Germán Vergara is Assistant Professor of History at the Georgia Institute of Technology.