How we cut through the culture war on coal

As coal power plants continue to burn and pollute across America — still accounting for about a fifth of U.S. carbon pollution — Resource Media worked with Horizon Climate Initiative (HCI) and consumer groups in several states to expose utilities that continue to run expensive coal plants, even when cheaper alternatives are available. We designed online consumer outreach campaigns that could cut through politicization on the issue with conservatives.

Research to find the right framing

Knock on a door in Indiana and ask about views on coal-fired power plants, and you’re likely to get a partisan response. But ask about impacts of coal power plants on household bills… and watch that partisan divide disappear. This was the key insight from the online opinion research we designed and ran in partnership with Citizens Action Coalition (CITIACT) in Indiana, a coal-producing state.

Our initial testing revealed how framing coal around choices connected to costs, utility bailouts, and greedy profiteering could help cue a helpful mindset on coal across the ideological spectrum — rather than an unhelpful partisan-cued view. By educating on “uneconomic coal dispatch” (big power companies using overpriced coal at consumer expense), we could start to shift traditional views around coal as “low-cost and necessary.” We found a roadmap for building bipartisan support for action by officials to simply put the lowest-cost power first and let coal plants retire.

Online outreach to take it to the streets

With persuasion data in hand, we worked with CITIACT in Indiana and Alliance for Affordable Energy in Louisiana to take the framing to billpayers’ digital feeds, and marshal ad creative designed to grab eyes, educate, and spark action. To ensure we connected across the political aisle, our digital team segmented audiences and tracked results by political ideology.

In both states, our content worked with conservatives and progressives alike — with even more engagement from conservatives in Louisiana than from progressives. In Indiana, 1,800 Hoosiers sent their representatives e-letters expressing concern about the use of uneconomic coal; over a hundred thousand learned about the issue; and 5,000 dove into CITIACT’s website to learn more. In Louisiana, our campaign reached 60,000 and signed up hundreds interested to learn more about how to get uneconomic coal costs off their bills in the leadup to 2026 utilities commission elections.

Through content and thematic testing across multiple campaigns, we surfaced nuanced learnings, including how groups can adapt tone for different power company contexts. With moves at the federal level to keep expensive and aging coal plants alive, the kind of outreach we’re doing with HCI to raise awareness on the costs suggests a promising path for advocates around the country.