It’s that time of year again. The TIME 100 list of the most influential people in the world is officially out, and while boldface names like Beyoncé, Pope Francis and Robert Redford will get most of the attention, there’s also a surprising number of figures whose influence extends to the environment. A quick rundown:
Tom Steyer: Steyer became a billionaire as a bold hedge-fund trader. Now the San Francisco financier is betting some of his fortune on climate change, spending tens of millions of dollars to support candidates who are willing to act on global warming—and punishing those that won’t. Suddenly the Koch Brothers have competition.
Katharine Hayhoe: The bubbly Texas Tech climatologist has been doing work on climate change for years, but she came to the country’s attention earlier this month when she was featured in the premiere episode of Showtime’s global warming documentary Years of Living Dangerously. What sets Hayhoe apart from most climatologists is her faith: She’s an evangelical Christian, and proud of it. She’s made it her mission to bring the facts of climate change to her fellow believers.
Alice Waters: Waters all but kicked off the locavore revolution when she opened her Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse in 1971. But in recent years she’s turned her focus to children, using her pioneering Edible Schoolyard Project to push the idea that kids should be able to learn about food and farming in schools. Waters continues to change the way Americans eat—from the ground up.
Yao Chen: Every Chinese knows the air quality in their country is bad and getting worse. But not every Chinese is willing to say that out loud. Yao is the exception. The beloved movie star has more than 66 million followers on Weibo, China’s microblogging network, and she uses that platform to raise concerns about the country’s poisoned air and water.
Jack Ma: The founder of the Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba, Ma has become one of China’s richest businessmen. But last year he stepped back from his business to become the chairman of the Nature Conservancy’s China program, taking on his country’s catastrophic pollution.
Kathryn Sullivan: NASA may get all the glory, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forms the backbone of U.S. climate and weather research. NOAA is led now by Sullivan, part of the first class of female astronauts and a veteran of three space shuttle flights—including the one that deployed the Hubble Space Telescope.
