MOTION TO CHANGE COLOUR NAMES
TO REFLECT PLANETARY BOUNDARY TIPPING POINTS
COMES NOW the Mover, a Snæfellsjökuls rawlings, and respectfully requests the Deliberative Assembly to rename colours to reflect the breach of planetary boundary tipping points. This Motion is submitted to the Deliberative Assembly in accordance with an ecocentric framework, which situates societal, educational, economic, legal, relational, and cultural drivers as interdependent with ecosystems and more-than-human entities.
In support of this Motion, the Mover states the following.
Reason for Change
It is essential to codify within sociolinguistic systems the profound impact of breaching planetary boundary tipping points. In the case of human survivorship on a transforming planet, how we describe our eco-relations can fuel the urgency to act.
Modified colour names describe breached Earth systems. Timberwolf becomes extinct. Rainforest has been clear-cut. Groundwater is dirty. Dust storms. Coral bleaches. Spring Green falls silent. Microplastics are Purple. Climate change turns Orange. Ozone remains Ozone, for now.
As indicated in the above, adapted colour names embed diverse cultural narratives regarding ecosystem (dys)function and fact. A contemporary spin on signifiers allows a refreshment of relationship between humans and the planetary systems on which we interdepend.
Sociolegal Considerations
The Mover affirms that the requested name changes are not intended for fraudulent purposes and serve a legitimate interest. Media, governments, corporations, and academic institutions shape the tenor (affect ) and circulation (usage frequency) of popular discourses. We rename colours to reflect the changing state of our planet, thereby subverting status-quo institutional hegemony. Rather than governments and corporations dictating descriptive language through trademark and copyright law, this Motion advocates for a non-proprietary assertion of colour—and colour names—as cultural heritage and thereby within the public domain.
Colour names are largely designated and trademarked by corporations. To shift the dominant narratives embedded within these corporate definers of culture and aesthetics, changing colour names to reflect planetary boundary tipping points will place the agency to story-tell in the hands of citizens and residents. In this way, we codify our ecosocial connections in light of multiple environmental crises. These crises have undergone slow, if not back-stepped, response from major corporations. To leave this glocal storytelling in the hands of the corporations feels irresponsible.
Notification
Exhibits
There are fifty-five exhibits which feature a proposed colour and name change. Each exhibit includes Hex, Munsell , and Pantone colour codes for approximate reference. Exhibited colours could likewise be translated to other colour(-matching) systems beyond these three examples.
Action Requested
WHEREFORE, the Mover respectfully requests that this Deliberative Assembly grant the Motion to Change Colour Names to Reflect Planetary Boundary Tipping Points. By passing this Motion, the Assembly will encourage usage of the proposed colour names—and an open-source, crowd-sourced, collectively resourced generation of new names—within a commons.
Respectfully submitted,
DR. angela snæfellsjökuls rawlings
Mover
Endnotes
1 “The planetary boundaries framework draws upon Earth system science. It identifies nine processes that are critical for maintaining the stability and resilience of Earth system as a whole. All are presently heavily perturbed by human activities (Richardson et al. 2023).”
2 Typeset in Century Gothic Pro, a font that uses 30% less ink than similar fonts due to slender lines. Century Gothic Pro is recommended and used by many governments for legal documents.
3 ‘We’ as in any human who wishes to be included within this ‘we’. ‘We’ who relate. As in any human who is a we-body relating as an ecosystem within an ecosystem.
4 Planetary boundary: biosphere integrity.
5 Planetary boundary: land system change.
6 Planetary boundary: freshwater change.
7 Planetary boundary: atmospheric aerosol loading.
8 Planetary boundary: ocean acidification.
9 Planetary boundary: biogeochemical flows.
10 Planetary boundary: novel entities.
11 Over the last seventy-five years, the term climate change has undergone repeated alteration in how both speed and temperature are described. From “climate change” (Plass 1956) and “inadvertent climate modification” (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kungl. Svenska vetenskapsakademien, and Ingenjörsvetenskapsakademien (Sweden) 1971) to “global warming” (Broecker 1975), global heating, climate disruption, climate breakdown, climate crisis, climate chaos, climate catastrophe, climate emergency, and “climate disaster” (Guterres 2021), the worsening tone that is cast over the rapid change to the climatic system denotes affect as important for scientific message retention.
12 Planetary boundary: climate change.
13 Planetary boundary: stratospheric ozone depletion.
14 Colours and their names communicate affect, exemplary in meteorological and geographic maps as information sources for the public. Maps rely on colour to indicate aspects of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss in near real-time—signalling desertification, increased storminess, population density, ozone depletion, air quality, and habitat destruction—to name a few. A map’s legend relies on a colour spectrum which, through rapid legibility, can trigger affective comprehension.
15 “It’s all about control (Pantone LLC, n.d.).”
16 Global + local = glocal.
17 Exhibit (noun). (1) A document, photograph, object, animation, or other device formally introduced as evidence in a legal proceeding. (2) An attachment to a motion, contract, pleading, or other legal instrument. (3) An object or collection shown publicly, such as in a gallery.
18 Munsell specialises in environmental colour communication through their soil, rock, and plant tissue colour charts.
References
Broecker, Wallace S. 1975. ‘Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?’ Source: Science, New Series 189 (4201): 460–63.
Guterres, António, dir. 2021. COP26: World Leaders Summit Opening Ceremony. Glasgow, Scotland. https://unfccc-cop26.streamworld.de/webcast/opening-ceremony.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kungl. Svenska vetenskapsakademien, and Ingenjörsvetenskapsakademien (Sweden). 1971. Inadvertent Climate Modification: Report. MIT Press.
Pantone LLC. n.d. ‘Color Identification and Control’. Pantone. Accessed 30 December 2024. https://www.pantone.com/articles/how-to/color-identification-and-control.
Plass, Gilbert N. 1956. ‘The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change’. Tellus 8 (2): 140–54. https://doi.org/10.1111/J.2153-3490.1956.TB01206.X.
Richardson, Katherine, Will Steffen, Wolfgang Lucht, Jørgen Bendtsen, Sarah E. Cornell, Jonathan F. Donges, Markus Drüke, et al. 2023. ‘Earth beyond Six of Nine Planetary Boundaries’. Science Advances 9 (37): eadh2458. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458.