365 Days of Climate Awareness 267 - Introduction to Mexico

Mexico is a country in North America covering 1,972,550 sq km/761,610 sq mi with a population of slightly over 126 million. It is bordered by the United States to the north, by Belize and Guatemala to the south, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It ranges in latitude from 14.5° to 32.6°, making it partly tropical, partly subtropical. Along with ancient China, India, Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Andes, Mexico (Mesoamerica) is considered one of the cradles of world civilization.

New Spain (i.e. Mexico), 1819.

Traces of human habitation stretch back 8,000 years. Many civilizations flourished there, including the Maya and Aztecs, until the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés wiped out the Aztecs in 1519-21. The Spanish retained control until 1821, mining silver and exporting it back to Spain, until a Mexican monarchy was established in opposition to foreign rule. Throughout the 19th century Mexico fought repeatedly against the young United States, losing large amounts of territory, and even fended off an invasion by France. (Cinco de Mayo celebrates the Mexican victory in 1862 over the Second French Empire in the Battle of Puebla.) By the end of the 1800’s a republican form of government had emerged, and even though its existence was turbulent, and its politics marred by several murders, Mexican democracy has stood for more than a century.

Modern Mexico, political map.

Ethnically Mexico is still almost one-quarter indigenous, despite the huge loss of population during the epidemics imported by invading Spaniards. Census tracking of ethnicities there has been spotty through the years, but more recently, more detailed categories of local ethnic groups have come into use and counts are sharpening. Climatically Mexico ranges from tropical rainforest, monsoonal and savanna zones in the south to more temperate alpine zones in the central region, to deserts both hot and cool to the north.

Physical map.

The abundance of silver and Mexico’s unique position with coasts on both Atlantic and Pacific–a geopolitical advantage central to the United States’ current global ascendancy–made the Mexican economy, under Spain, a global influence. Mexican pesos served as the world’s defacto first global currency. With independence came multiple wars, civil and external, which contributed to the country’s fall from the global economic stage, particularly as the United States to the north steadily expanded westward and annexed much of Mexico’s former territory, including California and Texas. 

Köppen-Geiger climate zones, 1980-2016

Oil has come to replace silver as Mexico’s prime export. In 1938 Mexico nationalized the international companies drilling for and producing oil there, with predictable effects in drying up investment and limiting the economic benefits of production to a very few. Only recently has Mexican government reopened energy production to a more competitive market, but Mexico’s oil production has been declining, since a maximum of roughly 3.3 million b/day (mmbl) in 2005 to roughly 2.5 mmbl in 2021. About one-third of Mexico’s tax revenues come from the national oil company, PEMEX. 

Mexican oil production (1 TWh ~ 600K barrels of oil)

Though Mexico’s economy has diversified greatly, with automotive and technology sectors becoming increasingly important for exports, income and wealth remain highly stratified, and the still-flourishing drug trade makes law enforcement in some parts of the country tenuous at best. The power and prevalence of drug cartels throughout the country have negatively impacted the tourist industry, another significant source of income for citizens and government alike.

Mexico City.

Tomorrow: Mexico and climate change.

Be brave, and be well.