Months after the Palisades Fire devastated her Los Angeles-area neighborhood, Violet Affleck opened up about an argument she had with her mother, Jennifer Garner, during the natural disaster.
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In an academic research paper, A Chronically Ill Earth: COVID Organizing as a Model Climate Response in Los Angeles, which was published in Yale University’s Global Health Review, Affleck discussed her experience living through the wildfires. As she wrote about the devastation, Violet reflected on the argument she and Garner had about their different interpretations of the situation.
“I spent the January fires in Los Angeles arguing with my mother in a hotel room,” she explained. She also pointed out that her mother was “shell-shocked, astonished at the scale of destruction.”
However, Violet, whom Garner shares with ex-husband Ben Affleck, admitted she was confused by the actress’ reaction. “As a lifelong Angelena and climate-literate member of generation Z, my question had not been whether the Palisades would burn but when.“
“As I chatted with adults in the hotel where we’d gone to escape the smoke, though, I found my position to be an uncommon one,” she continued. “People spoke of how long rebuilding would take, how much it would cost, and how tragically odd the whole situation had been.”
Violet also described the wildfire crisis as an “acute, a burst of bad luck.”
“It had come from a combination of high winds and low rains,” she explained.
Along With Jennifer Garner, Violet Affleck Also Argued With Her Little Brother About the Fires
Meanwhile, Violet Affleck further revealed she was also having arguments about the situation with her little brother, Samuel, 13.
“‘Did global warming have to do with the speed of the wind?‘” she recounted Samuel’s question. “Hopefully, most of us understand the climate crisis better than my little brother.”
Violet also referred to climate change as “existential and accelerating.”
“It’s anthropogenic. Driven by unsustainable consumption patterns concentrated among the wealthiest citizens of the wealthiest countries,” she explained. “All of which have already subjected most of this country and the world to deadly temperatures, fire-flood cycles, rising seas, and dying crops.”
Violet discussed the current public health protocols administered during climate disasters. She compared the response to the wildfires and the reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She suggested climate scientists should observe the “methods and political commitments” that the COVID-conscious and disabled people have made.
Affleck previously discussed COVID-19 precaution measures during a Los Angeles Board of Supervisors meeting last summer. During that meeting, she demanded that the L.A.-area hospitals have mask mandates.