Latest news with #Angelena
New York Post
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Climate extremists make our kids despair — and groom them to join the left's crusades
Extreme privilege and fame have never been a recipe for emotional stability, but today's Hollywood offspring seem especially unequipped to face reality. Case in point: Ramona Sarsgaard, the 18-year-old daughter of actors Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard, who was arrested this month for criminal trespass during a pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University's Butler Library. This wasn't her first foray into activism. Sarsgaard has been a committed climate crusader since childhood. At just 13, she gave a speech at Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience award ceremony in honor of Greta Thunberg. Like Thunberg, Ramona has built her identity around the belief that climate catastrophe is not only inevitable but imminent. Sarsgaard marched in the Youth Climate Strike in New York and, according to her mother, is among the many children who 'aren't able to push out of their minds the dire situation that we're in.' She's not alone: An entire generation has been raised to believe they are living through the end of the world — and their mental health reflects it. Just this week Violet Affleck, 19, daughter of Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck, published an essay in Yale University's 'Global Health Review' describing a heated conflict with her mother earlier this year. 'I spent the January fires in Los Angeles arguing with my mother in a hotel room,' she wrote — in fights triggered by Garner's shock at the devastation. 'As a lifelong Angelena and climate-literate member of Generation Z,' Violet explained, 'my question had not been whether the Palisades would burn but when.' She went on to call climate change an 'existential and accelerating' crisis. It's clear she wasn't just debating a hot topic with her mother — she was evangelizing a worldview that sees environmental collapse as a given. If that mindset sounds extreme, that's because it's being carefully cultivated. Affleck's worldview was deliberately drilled into her by climate activists, who have groomed an entire generation to join their crusade. At institutions like Yale, climate anxiety is treated as a developmental inevitability. An advice column in a Yale newsletter a few years ago instructed parents and caregivers to lead even the youngest children through therapeutic climate exercises, like imagining their favorite animal being impacted by climate change and speaking from its perspective. Just imagine launching that conversation with your 4-year-old: 'Think of Peter Rabbit. Now imagine Peter has run out of food and dies because he's too thirsty, has no grass to eat, and no shade to take refuge in as temperatures soar.' You couldn't come up with a more traumatic lesson for a young child to engage in if you tried —yet the 'experts' at Yale recommend it as a therapeutic template to explain to children that the world is ending. The consequences of this approach are measurable. A global 2021 study on climate anxiety found that in 31 of 32 countries, distress about climate change was linked to poorer mental health. In another survey of 10,000 young people across 10 nations, three-quarters said 'the future is frightening,' and more than half believed that 'humanity is doomed.' And yet the same activists, media outlets and global institutions that amplify climate alarmism are now wringing their hands over the youth mental-health crisis. A pair of Stanford University psychiatrists, discussing the 2021 anxiety study on the World Economic Forum website, sought to normalize what they called 'climate distress' — defining it as a troubling blend of dread, sadness, powerlessness and anger. It's 'a normal and appropriate thing to feel,' they claimed, in the face of 'hurricanes, droughts and floods, and clear evidence that our planetary boundaries are being overshot.' But let's be honest: These experts are reporting on the very fire they helped start. And they need that fire to keep the recruits engaged and energized to stay in the fight. Sarsgaard, Thunberg and Affleck are the natural products of a culture that's fed kids a steady diet of existential panic. Raised in privilege, surrounded by wealth and educated at elite institutions, these young women nonetheless see themselves as doomed. The first two already boast criminal records — and Affleck, by her own account, has become so unbearable a scold that her family may opt to shelter in place next time disaster threatens, rather than crowd into a cramped hotel room with her truculent presence. They're fighting an existential battle to save the planet — one they've been convinced is rapidly coming to an end. And as Sarsgaard demonstrates, they're easy prey for those pushing the next leftist cause du jour. They represent an entire generation driven off the deep end by their own manufactured anxiety. We told kids the world was ending. They listened. Bethany Mandel writes and podcasts at The Mom Wars.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Violet Affleck details heated argument with mom Jennifer Garner in hotel room
Violet Affleck knows how to capture a reader's attention. "I spent the January fires in Los Angeles arguing with my mom in a hotel room," the Yale University freshman wrote in the opening lines of an academic paper published in the Global Health Review. The essay itself is dense and sophisticated, exploring parallels between public health responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and strategies for confronting climate change. But tucked inside all that research is something more personal: a peek into the thoughts of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's eldest child. According to Violet, Garner was 'shell-shocked, astonished, at the scale of destruction' wrought by the wildfires in the neighborhood where she is raising her family. Garner, 53, and Affleck, who divorced in 2018, are also parents to Fin, 16, and Samuel, 13. 'I was surprised at her surprise: as a lifelong Angelena and climate-literate member of generation Z, my question had not been whether the Palisades would burn but when,' Violet wrote. The January, 2025 fires in the Los Angeles area killed at least 29 people and destroyed thousands of homes. Violet, a rising sophomore at Yale, recounted growing increasingly frustrated with other adults who dismissed the crisis as if it were merely a 'burst of bad luck.' 'It had come from a combination of high winds and low rains — what, my little brother asked, did global warming have to do with the speed of the wind?' Violet wrote. 'Hopefully, most of us understand the climate crisis better than my little brother," she later added. Violet's commitment to public health hasn't been confined to the classroom. In 2024, Violet delivered a passionate speech at a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting, pushing back against proposed mask bans in public spaces and healthcare settings. She spoke from personal experience, having dealt with a post-viral condition herself, and stressed how serious and long-lasting the effects of viral infections can be, especially for vulnerable communities. Violet also has a knack for language. When dad Ben Affleck appeared on TODAY in April, he described Violet as a "student of Spanish." He studied the subject at the University of Vermont. "She will tell me that hers is better than mine,' the actor told Savannah. 'And I'm glad that I get the chance to be on national television and just claim victory!'This article was originally published on
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Violet Affleck argues with mother Jennifer Garner about true cause of California wildfires
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's daughter Violet Affleck went into detail this week about how she and her mother argued about the causes of the Los Angeles wildfires that destroyed their Pacific Palisades neighborhood in January. "I spent the January fires in Los Angeles arguing with my mother in a hotel room," the 19-year-old wrote in Yale's Global Health Review, where she is a student, in a piece published on Sunday titled: "A Chronically Ill Earth: COVID Organizing as a Model Climate Response in Los Angeles." Affleck continued of Garner, "She was shell-shocked, astonished at the scale of destruction in the neighborhood where she raised myself and my siblings. I was surprised at her surprise: as a lifelong Angelena and climate-literate member of generation Z, my question had not been whether the Palisades would burn but when." She wrote that while some people at the hotel saw the wildfires as a "burst of bad luck" that was a combination of high winds and little rain, she knew it was related to the "climate crisis." Jennifer Garner Seen Kissing Boyfriend John Miller As She Spends Time With Ben Affleck For Easter Along with Violet, Affleck and Garner, who divorced in 2018, also share Fin,16, and Samuel, 13. Read On The Fox News App Affleck compared people being forced to wear N95 masks because of poor air quality after the fires to the COVID-19 pandemic, writing that, like the health crisis, climate change will "soon become impossible for even society's most insulated to ignore." Like What You're Reading? Click Here For More Entertainment News She wrote about the "promised end to the pandemic has been more a matter of public relations than public health," adding that public health officials were soon forced to grapple with "ongoing waves of infection" even as the country came "out of the pandemic." Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck's Daughter Violet's Graduation Leaves Actress In Tears She also noted that coronavirus can be "a threat to even the healthiest individuals," specifying long COVID as an example. Last summer, the first-year college student, who often still wears masks, appeared at a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Meeting, speaking out against mask bans after Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said she was looking at the legality of wearing masks at protests. Affleck wrote that despite the effectiveness of wearing masks, more proactive steps need to be taken to lower coronavirus infection risk, just like for climate change. Click Here To Sign Up For The Entertainment Newsletter "Though widespread N95 masking is indisputably the most effective tool for individuals to prevent COVID transmission, masking alone is both more resource-intensive and more reactive than collective interventions like paid sick leave for all workers, universal healthcare, and clean air standards requiring HEPA filtration and far-UVC light44 to kill airborne virus in public spaces," she argued. Ben Affleck Shuts Down Teenage Son's Request For $6K Shoes: 'I Have The Money, You're Broke' Affleck concluded her essay by saying, "In the same way that COVID-conscious and disabled people celebrate each chain of transmission broken, climate scientists recognize that each degree of warming we avoid will be a victory. 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." Last spring, Garner shared several photos on Instagram of herself in tears during and after Violet's high school graduation. Violet is Garner and Affleck's oldest child. "Tell me you have a graduate without telling me you have a graduate," she wrote in the caption, adding in parentheses: "Bless our hearts." "How are we going to make it? What are we going to do?" Garner asked in one video taken on an airplane as she wiped away tears. Garner also told Southern Living in an interview last year that she has striven to raise her children to be humble despite being born into wealth. "It's really important for my kids to see that everyone doesn't have the lives they see in Los Angeles," she told the magazine. "That doesn't reflect the rest of the world. I want them to grow up with the Southern values I had—to look at people when they say hello and to stop and smell the roses. If I could do half as good a job as my mom did, I'd be pretty happy." Fox News Digital has reached out to a rep for Garner for article source: Violet Affleck argues with mother Jennifer Garner about true cause of California wildfires
USA Today
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Violet Affleck recalls arguing with 'shell-shocked' Jennifer Garner during LA wildfires
Violet Affleck recalls arguing with 'shell-shocked' Jennifer Garner during LA wildfires Arguing with a parent is not new territory in adolescence. But for Violet Affleck, things were a bit more complicated. Affleck, daughter of award-winning actors Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, reflected on a tense interaction she had with Garner during the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year in a May 18 essay, "A Chronically Ill Earth: COVID Organizing as a Model Climate Response in Los Angeles," featured in The Yale Global Health Review (Affleck is a first-year student at the Ivy League university's Davenport College.) "I spent the January fires in Los Angeles arguing with my mother in a hotel room," Affleck, 19, wrote. "She was shell-shocked, astonished at the scale of destruction in the neighborhood where she raised myself and my siblings." A series of 14 wildfires, sparked in part by hurricane-force Santa Ana winds, devastated the Southern California region in January, causing widespread property damage, mass evacuations and the burning of tens of thousands of acres. Numerous celebrities, including Mel Gibson, Paris Hilton and Milo Ventimiglia, lost their homes in the ravaging blaze. "I was surprised at her surprise: as a lifelong Angelena and climate-literate member of generation Z, my question had not been whether the Palisades would burn but when," Affleck continued. "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: people spoke of how long rebuilding would take, how much it would cost, and how tragically odd the whole situation had been." The Palisades and Eaton fires, the two largest of the California wildfires, swept through the Pacific Palisades and Altadena regions, killing at least 29 and burning over 37,000 acres, or 57.8 square miles. The fires, which were fully contained in early February, have been ranked as the second and third most destructive wildfires in California history, according to Cal Fire. Garner previously said she's lived in or around the Pacific Palisades neighborhood for 25 years. While her home was not destroyed, the actress revealed in a Jan. 10 interview that one of her friends perished in the wildfires. Garner's family church also burned down in the blaze. "I feel almost guilty walking through my house," Garner told MSNBC's Katy Tur. "You know, what can I do? How can I help? What can I offer? What do I have to offer with these hands and these walls and the safety that I have?" Violet Affleck reveals she contracted post-viral condition in 2019 Violet Affleck advocates for public health measures Affleck has previously been vocal about public health. In July 2024, she delivered remarks about COVID-19 pandemic precautions during the public comment section of a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting, which also included the health revelation that Affleck contracted a "post-viral condition" in 2019. In her May 18 essay, Affleck likened the "bewildered" public response to the LA wildfires to that of the COVID pandemic, with people often framing the broader issue of climate change as "a question of how fast we can get back around to pretending like the problem is gone." Violet Affleck graduates high school: See Jennifer Garner's emotional reaction "Climate disasters cannot be prevented or mitigated as easily as airborne disease transmission. But the experience of chronic illness is relevant here, too," wrote Affleck, who cited the proactive health strategies of individuals with long COVID as a possible model. "In the same way that COVID-conscious and disabled people celebrate each chain of transmission broken, climate scientists recognize that each degree of warming we avoid will be a victory." Contributing: Brendan Morrow and James Powel, USA TODAY
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Violet Affleck reveals she and her mom, Jennifer Garner, had very different reactions to the Los Angeles wildfires
Violet Affleck has revealed something about her relationship with one of her famous parents as part of her college experience. The 19-year-old daughter of actors Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck is currently a freshman at Yale University. The younger Affleck recently published an academic research paper in the school's Global Health Review, titled 'A Chronically Ill Earth: COVID Organizing as a Model Climate Response in Los Angeles.' She began the paper by reflecting on an environmental disaster that she and Garner endured with many other Southern California residents, writing 'I spent the January fires in Los Angeles arguing with my mother in a hotel room.' 'She was shell-shocked, astonished at the scale of destruction in the neighborhood where she raised myself and my siblings,' Affleck wrote. 'I was surprised at her surprise: as a lifelong Angelena and climate-literate member of generation Z, my question had not been whether the Palisades would burn but when.' The Los Angeles wildfires at the beginning of the year resulted in the loss of thousands of homes and buildings, especially in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena areas. '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: people spoke of how long rebuilding would take, how much it would cost, and how tragically odd the whole situation had been,' Affleck wrote. 'The crisis was acute, a burst of bad luck. It had come from a combination of high winds and low rains – what, my little brother asked, did global warming have to do with the speed of the wind?' she continued. 'Outside, people wandered, faces covered by N95s. 'This feels like COVID,' said one wild-eyed woman clutching two leashed Yorkies. 'We're all in masks.'' Affleck addressed air quality and health issues before. Last summer, the then 18-year-old spoke during the public comments portion of a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting and was seen making an impassioned plea in a video shared on X. 'I contracted a post-viral condition in 2019,' Affleck said at the meeting. 'I'm OK now, but I saw first-hand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses.' She went on to request 'mask availability, air filtration and far-UVC lights in government facilities, including jails and detention centers, and mask mandates in county medical facilities.' Affleck advocated for free testing and treatment opportunities, while adding 'most importantly the county must oppose mask bans for any reason.' 'They do not keep us safer, they make vulnerable members of our community less safe and make everyone less able to participate in Los Angeles together,' she concluded in her speech. Affleck is the eldest of three children of Garner and Ben Affleck, who married in 2005 and divorced in 2018. Their other children are Seraphina (who goes by Finn), 16 and Samuel, 13.
