Help Write a Title for the First DeSmogBlog Book
The first DeSmogBlog book is far enough along that our publisher is demanding a title, so we’re looking for feedback - and we have three other great climate change books to reward the best responses or suggestions.
The titles we are tentatively considering include:
Climate Science Fiction: Exposing the PR Campaign to Deny Global Warming
Courting Climate Chaos: Exploring the PR Campaign to Deny Global Warming
Fossil Fools: The PR Tactics used to Bamboozle the World about Climate Change
Manufacturing Doubt: Exposing the PR Campaign to Confuse People about Climate Change
Spinning Climate Change: Who Convinced Us to Ignore Global Warming; and How
You Can’t Spin Mother Nature: Exposing the PR Campaign to Deny Climate Change
You can offer criticisms, edits or alternatives in the comment section below or send them directly to me at rlittlemore@hoggan.com. Again, top three most useful respondents will get a free book.
I'm lobbying for
Fossil Fools:
The PR Tactics used to Bamboozle the World about Climate Change
Mind you, I hadn’t seen the Manufacturing Doubt one. That’s pretty good, but it reminds me a lot of Chomsky, which I guess isn’t a bad thing.
Title
Clouds and Cobwebs: The Global Warming Denial Campaign
If you write a best title,
If you write a best title, your book will sell about 25% more than if it has a so-so title. Brainstorm on your title ( Essay ) and you already have the first “essential hot-selling point” down. Always know the pre-marketing selling points before you write your book! Write a clever title, but include your book’s promise in the subtitle. These can be the benefits, or results they’ll get after reading it. Write a title that is the book’s thesis. Write your eBook or other Short Book Fast is both a thesis and title. Great for the search engines to find. Avoid hyperbole and adjectives such as gigantic or amazing. They don’t add real value. Hype doesn’t work with a lot of people. ( Dissertation and Assignment help )
Manufacturing Doubt
would be my choice. Makes the deniers sound methodical and deliberate — rather than flakey. I mean, they ARE flakey (have you seen the article about this year’s Heartland Institute conference in New York? Enough said), but you want the book to be taken seriously.
The Smogscreen
It’s catchy, people know what a smokescreen is, and it’ll help people remember DeSmogBlog.
Lies and Ignorance
I suggest “Lies and Ignorance”.
I do this because of the Chancellor award given for the first time to a science writer, Andy Revkin of the NT Times this year. They handed out two awards this year, one to Jane Meyer who wrote on what the mainstream journalists take to be their usual beat, i.e. White House skullduggery re torture at Guantanamo, rendition flights, etc, and one to Revkin, for his twenty years worth of reporting on climate.
What struck me when studying the video of the awards night was that they all looked back to John Chancellor’s great reporting when he was the NBC TV reporter who went to Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas when the National Guard was called out to stop black kids from entering the school. In ringing tones, one of the speechmakers at the ceremony lauded Chancellor for “dispelling lies and ignorance” with his coverage of the race issue at that time.
In other words, Chancellor took a side. Race was a polarizing issue if there ever was one, as there were people who believed then that blacks weren’t human enough to be educated beside whites at the same schools.
When they gave Revkin his award, the ringing tones said he was getting it for sticking to the facts, and “showing respect” to all sides on this “polarizing” issue of climate change.
I was struck by this, and I tried to imagine Chancellor “showing respect” to people who thought blacks were subhuman, who should be re-enslaved and denied their freedom, as he “stuck to the facts” and reported that “polarizing” issue back then. We’re supposed to show respect to those who perpetrate “lies and ignorance” on climate now, and it’s time it stopped.
At your best, DeSmogBlog seeks to counter the lies and ignorance with truth. Its something worth doing.
State of Denial
i like this title because..
You can read it in different ways and it still makes sense..
+
It refers to a good series of books on the global environment
succes with your book.
Some title ideas
Fossil Fools is pretty damn good. A few other possibilities:
Chapter outline?
Might you provide a brief outline or list of chapters?
That would help me compare titles.
How about a title based on inactivists' words and actions?
My suggestion:
Al Gore is Fat!: The Diversionary “Grassroots” Campaign to Deny Global Warming
Also, what John Mashey said: it’ll be nice if we can see the chapter outline.
My suggestion...
That's a cool title
It emphasizes the fact that the dissent isn’t righteous, but is unscientific and bogus.
I was thinking of something along the lines of “Science versus Freedom: …” but your suggestion is much better.
— bi
Blowing Smoke
Blowing Smoke is very good indeed. I wonder if we should flesh it out? How about “Blowing Oil, Blowing Smoke”