Doreen Stabinsky

Before COA

Doreen worked as science advisor and campaigner for Greenpeace US and Greenpeace International from 2000-2010.

She was assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at California State University, Sacramento from 1995-2000.

Doreen speaks French and Spanish. She loves biking, hiking, gardening, and kayaking. In 2021, she completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training program with the Kula Yoga Project.

Course Areas

Climate Justice, Land and Climate, Biodiversity and Climate Change Politics

More Information about my Courses

Doreen teaches courses on climate justice, land and climate change, comparative climate change and biodiversity politics, and French and European political institutions. Her courses span theory and practice, with theoretical groundings in political ecology and practical political engagement in real-world struggles for climate justice and social change.

• Ph.D. Genetics, University of California, Davis 1996
• Post-baccalaureate study, Biology, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA 1983-1986
• B.A. Economics, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, 1982

Doreen’s professional work beyond teaching and COA straddles intersections between biodiversity and climate policy and politics. She is advisor and consultant to international climate justice organizations and social movements on issues related to land, livelihoods, and climate change, in particular against carbon markets and carbon offsetting. In UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations, she serves as technical advisor to a group of developing country governments on the issue of loss and damage.

Doreen is a member of the Technical Council of the Science-Based Targets Initiative. She co-chairs the Net Zero working group of the Climate Social Science Network and chairs the No Offsets working group of the Climate Land Ambition and Rights Alliance (CLARA). She is active in a number of other national and international alliances of climate justice organizations working against carbon offsetting and the commodification and financialization of nature. 

Doreen is a member of the Northeast Climate Change Education Collaborative and the Equity and Ambition Group. Doreen served as a member of the Commission on Accelerating Climate Action of the American Academy for Arts and Sciences. 

Doreen’s most recent publication is “The tool of imagination”, co-authored with Katrine Østerby, included in the anthology The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators: How to teach in a burning world, edited by Jennifer Atkinson and Sarah Jaquette Ray. She is author of Fossil futures built on a house of cards and Chasing Carbon Unicorns: the deception of carbon markets and “net zero”, both published by a group of climate justice organizations and social movements including Friends of the Earth International and La Via Campesina. She is a co-author of Missing Pathways to 1.5 °C: the role of the land sector in ambitious climate action, published by CLARA. She is a contributing author to Working Groups II and III reports of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

She is the co-author, with Ronnie Lipschutz, of Environmental Politics in a Changing World: power, perspectives, and practice, and co-editor, with Stephen Brush, of Valuing Local Knowledge: indigenous people and intellectual property rights. 

Presentations

Doreen presents widely on topics related to climate justice, land and climate change, carbon markets, and the financialization of nature.