‘Scary name’ for paint: Behr paint’s ‘Climate Change’ color raises eyebrows
Dec 18, 2024
(KRON) -- If you find yourself browsing through the paint chips at Home Depot looking for an off-white paint chip, you'll come across sensible names like "Polar Bear," "Whisper White," "Frost," and "Swiss Coffee." But one paint name, that has certainly caught the attention of the internet, might take you aback.
The paint, a kind of wispy, off-white from Behr paints is called "Climate Change."
Yes, that's right, a paint company has branded one of its products based on a potentially catastrophic global climate phenomenon that's frequently described as a crisis.
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On its website, Behr describes the paint as "an icy green-gray with a tonal richness." The rest of the internet, however, doesn't seem to know what to make of it.
"Why would you do this?" asked a climate journalist at The Atlantic in a post to X in 2022.
"Is climate change a shade of taupe because the Behr paint logo is a bear?" the same writer asked in a subsequent post. "Is this about polar bears darkening their coats because of declining sea ice?"
"'Climate Change' seems like a really scary name for a paint chip of a wispy, moss-tinted white that would look great in my bathroom," posted one user in Reddit's "CrappyDesign" forum.
So what's the deal with the name? According to an article in Curbed, which first reported this story, a Behr spokesperson said the "earthy" color was named because of its "connection to the natural world."