Yale University freshman Violet Affleck revealed that she had prolonged disputes with her mother, actress Jennifer Garner, while they sheltered in a Los Angeles, California, hotel during the devastating January wildfires affecting their Pacific Palisades neighborhood.
The 19-year-old daughter of Garner and Ben Affleck detailed these familial tensions in a research paper published on May 18 in Yale University’s Global Health Review. Her essay, “A Chronically Ill Earth: COVID Organizing as a Model Climate Response in Los Angeles,” begins with an account of the family discord amid the crisis.
“I spent the January fires in Los Angeles arguing with my mother in a hotel room,” Violet wrote in her paper, which links climate emergencies with public health strategies.
The disputes arose from differing family reactions to the wildfires that ignited on January 7, 2025. Violet described her mother as overwhelmed by the destruction in their long-term home area. Having grown up in Los Angeles and studied climate science, Violet expressed concern not about if but when the Palisades would face fire damage.
The Yale student criticized how adults handled the emergency, recounting conversations with others who viewed the wildfires as random occurrences due to strong winds and lack of rain, rather than climate-related events. She noted that many focused on reconstruction timelines, costs, and the perceived anomaly of the disaster.
The January fires were among California’s most destructive on record, causing at least 30 fatalities and displacing over 200,000 residents. They destroyed more than 18,000 buildings across approximately 22 square miles.
The Palisades Fire affected nearly 37 square miles in Pacific Palisades and parts of Malibu, while the Eaton Fire burned over 22 square miles north of Pasadena. Intense Santa Ana winds, reaching 100 mph in some areas, and severe drought conditions contributed to the rapid spread of the fires.
Tensions extended beyond Violet and her mother to include her younger sibling. She mentioned confusion with her 13-year-old brother, Samuel, who asked about the relationship between global warming and wind velocity. “Hopefully, most of us understand the climate crisis better than my little brother,” Violet said.
In her academic work, Violet argued that climate change is a critical, worsening threat driven by excessive consumption in wealthy nations. She claimed these behaviors have already exposed America and the world to extreme temperatures, shifting fire and flood patterns, rising ocean levels, and agricultural failures.
Her paper compared responses to wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting a societal preference for normalcy over addressing systemic issues. Violet suggested that community reactions to the LA fires indicate similar approaches to climate challenges as seen with the pandemic, focusing on returning to routine rather than solving root causes.
Violet’s public health activism began before the wildfire crisis. In July 2024, she addressed the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors about mask mandates, sharing her experience with a 2019 illness. “I contracted a post-viral condition in 2019. I’m OK now, but I saw firsthand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses,” she explained.
She emphasized that ten percent of infections result in long COVID, a severe condition affecting neurological and cardiovascular health, impairing employment, vision, movement, and cognitive function.
The Pacific Palisades area holds significance for the Affleck-Garner family. Garner has lived there for 25 years, raising her three children with Ben Affleck in the community. The couple, who married in 2005 and separated in 2018, also have children Fin, 16, and Samuel, 13, in addition to Violet.
After the fires, Garner expressed survivor’s guilt in a media interview, sharing her feelings of guilt while walking through her unharmed home and questioning how she could help others given her secure situation.
The Palisades Fire started at 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time on January 7, initially covering about 10 acres. Strong winds allowed the fire to grow at a rate of three football fields per minute during peak times. The blaze expanded from 20 to 200 acres within 20 minutes.
The Palisades Fire destroyed 6,837 buildings, making it Los Angeles’ most destructive fire incident. On January 31, 2025, firefighting teams fully contained both major fires, ending 24 days of emergency operations.
Violet concluded her Yale paper with a call for climate action. She compared the relief of COVID-conscious and disabled individuals over prevented disease transmission to climate researchers recognizing each degree of temperature increase avoided as a win. “It’s time for everyone who cares about the latter to engage with the people, the methods, and the political commitments that make the former possible,” she concluded.
