In a heartfelt essay, Violet Affleck, the 19-year-old daughter of Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck, shared a poignant moment from January’s devastating Los Angeles wildfires. Holed up in a hotel room with her mother, Violet recounted their heated debate over the true cause of the blaze that ravaged their Pacific Palisades neighborhood. While Garner, a lifelong Angeleno, was stunned by the destruction, Violet, a climate-literate Gen Z student at Yale, saw the fires as an inevitable consequence of the climate crisis, not just a stroke of bad luck fueled by high winds and scant rain.

In her piece for Yale’s Global Health Review, titled A Chronically Ill Earth: COVID Organizing as a Model Climate Response in Los Angeles, Violet drew striking parallels between the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. She noted how the poor air quality post-fires forced people into N95 masks, a grim reminder of the pandemic’s lingering shadow. Violet argued that both crises demand proactive, collective action—beyond individual measures like masking. She called for systemic solutions like paid sick leave, universal healthcare, and advanced air filtration to curb both viral and environmental threats.

Violet’s activism isn’t new. Last summer, she spoke out at a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting against proposed mask bans, advocating for their role in reducing COVID transmission. Her essay underscores a broader point: just as every broken chain of COVID transmission is a win, every degree of global warming avoided is a victory for climate scientists. Violet’s words are a call to action, urging society to confront these intertwined crises with urgency and unity.

Garner, who shares Violet, Fin (16), and Samuel (13) with Affleck, has long emphasized raising grounded children despite their Hollywood roots. Last spring, she shared emotional moments from Violet’s high school graduation, reflecting on the bittersweet milestone. Violet’s essay, however, shows a young woman already stepping into her own, blending personal experience with a sharp vision for a healthier planet.

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