Sharing a stage with French economist Thomas Piketty on Monday night in Boston, Sen. Elizabeth Warren discussed a range issues related to economic inequality during a joint interview with the Huffington Post, but said that people should be careful not to separate the far-reaching implications that outsized wealth and power in the U.S. can have on vital, planetary issues like climate change.

Piketty, the author of the groundbreaking and bestselling book Capitalism in the 21st Century, offered his perspective on the rise of global wealth disparity as Warren focused on her familiar rhetoric surrounding the politics of inequality by describing the numerous ways in which “the system is rigged” against working people in favor of the financial and political elite.

In a direct refutation of the infamous Reagan-era ethos of “trickle-down economics,” Warren said that Piketty’s invaluable research presented in his book shows that “wealth does not trickle down… it trickles up.”

“It trickles from everyone else,” she said, “to those who are rich.”

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In a striking moment of the discussion, Warren stopped to make a cogent point about the intersection between the inequality that Picketty has so well documented and the overwhelming issue of climate change which she argued should not be treated as something separate from the current political realities created by enormous wealth inequality.

“I think [these two issues] are the same debate,” said Warren as she crossed her arms to represent intersection. And continued: 

Watch the full interview:

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