ENERGY - MARIA GUNNOE
A lifelong resident of coal country in West Virginia, Maria Gunnoe has been fighting mountaintop removal, a take-no-prisoners approach to mining coal, ever since the debris from this brutal process landed in her backyard—quite literally. Fierce and unafraid, she has been featured in several documentaries on the topic, including On Coal River. She was also a recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2009.