How I Want To Be Remembered

A chat with Gordon Clark on his decision to bequeath a gift for us in his Will

“When my grandchildren are my age, what state will the planet be in?” Gordon Clark wonders out loud. “I’d like to do whatever I can when I'm still alive to fight for their future. I'd like them to know that I've been concerned about the climate crisis and trying to do a little bit as much as I could. That's how I want to be remembered,” he tells us over a call. This ties in deeply with his decision to leave Friends of the Earth a legacy gift in his Will.

Gordon pictured with Friends of the Earth staff at the Palestine demonstration in Dublin, July 2025

Legacy gifts in your Will is a powerful way to act for change and invest in a better future. In some ways, legacy gifts ensure your efforts to build a fairer, healthier world for all never really cease—and that your legacy lives on. Contributing financially at large to help drive change is a crucial form of activism, one that helps organisations like Friends of the Earth to keep fighting the good fight.

Our legacy donors, like Gordon, contribute immensely to our efforts to have a strong and reliable financial base—one that is majorly people-powered and free of corporate or government agendas. This enables us to keep going for as long as we are needed, and think and plan long-term to build a strong people-powered movement to bring about the system change needed for climate justice.

Driving system change or changing the exploitative systems responsible for the interlinked crises of climate breakdown, wars, exploitations and injustices, is something Gordon drew on. He has always felt strongly about the deep links of the climate crisis with the many broader forms of exploitation and injustice around the world—and the need for the climate movement to make these links. Gordon says:

The fight for climate justice is inherently linked not only to the fight against genocide, colonial exploitation and wars but also, and especially, I see it as very much connected to the important fight against the growing threat throughout the world of fascism and far right authoritarianism, populism and racism.

“I was delighted that Friends of the Earth were so well represented in the Gaza march (at IPSC’s National March for Palestine in Dublin on July 19th) and I think that's the way to go. To make the links obvious. Hope comes from working with other people together in groups and communities rather than moping silently or not doing anything at all. Otherwise, you would never get anywhere. You would never move,” he says, beautifully capturing the power of collective action, system change and intersectionality that’s core to us at Friends of the Earth.

True to his words, Gordon has been one of our most active and engaged supporters—and his support for us extends beyond his decision to bequeath a gift for us in his Will.

He is involved with us in a myriad of ways: from being an active member of BOLD Climate Action - a group for older people supported by Friends of the Earth - attending our events and marches, to taking action with us. What is more, Gordon has been a loyal monthly donor of Friends of the Earth for over seven years now!

Gordon’s interest in climate justice goes back a long way. He distinctly recalls a conversation he had back in the 1970s, while on a work trip to the U.S. “I remember having an animated discussion with someone about the development and exploitation of the planet and how unsustainable it was. I had a lot of questions and was not getting answers. And that, I suppose, was critical for me.”

Soon, in the 1980s, global warming hit the public consciousness and there was much more awareness in the media about it, he continues. “I think it was also linked to famine in Africa at the time, which is interesting because it brings us back to where we are today in terms of the link between climate change, exploitation and genocide.” And then, at the end of the 1990s as a result of friendly discussions mainly in Brussels, Gordon’s eyes were opened as to the extent and impact of social inequity, injustice and exploitation. That awakening led to his growing commitment to climate justice, based on the overwhelming evidence and indeed his scientist daughter’s encouragement.

It was years later, when he moved back to Ireland in the 2010s that he first got involved with Friends of the Earth. “I might have heard Friends of the Earth on the radio, maybe through Oisin Coghlan (our former CEO) and decided to start connecting with Friends of the Earth and donating. That was how it happened.”

“I value Friends of the Earth because it's a clear voice. It's an unambiguous, clear voice which is able to communicate with citizens through the media and to influence, therefore, decision-makers and politicians, irrespective of who is in government,” says Gordon.

His passion and commitment to the cause comes with concerns and a quest for the movement to do better too.

One thing I'm particularly concerned about is the extent to which climate change is perceived as being sort of a middle class and distant issue. How the urgency of the climate crisis can be conveyed in terms of people's daily concerns, the concerns of ordinary working people, and how it could be made relevant to them, rather than just to those who have time and money. I think that Friends of the Earth has a clear role to communicate that, to get across, and to break through the short-termism which politicians play into, obviously, and exploit.

This weaves in with the changes he’d like to see in the climate movement—and for the legacy gift to Friends of the Earth to contribute to. “I suppose working with communities at the local level and linking up the climate crisis with relevant issues, like the cost of fuel, or warm homes, or the availability of clean water, the availability of public transport. Issues that concern ordinary working people…” he tells us.

Gordon illustrates his point,

For example, the issue of data centres is extremely important, but your ordinary man on the street may not see a problem with data centres, because he is not informed of their direct relevance to him, to his life, although the reality is that they have a very direct relevance in terms of the availability and cost of energy and housing, of the use of fossil fuels. So, yeah, it's a struggle, not just in the broad sense, but also there's the urban-rural divide as well, so that the issue of agriculture and concerns of rural people should be addressed by the climate change movement. I think that's a huge challenge, really, and it's easy to identify the challenge, but it's not so easy to come up with concrete actions and steps to deal with the challenge.

Finally, we wanted to know what Gordon would like to say to someone who is also keen on leaving a legacy gift to Friends of the Earth or taking action in other ways. “Think of the future. Think of your descendants' future. Think of what is going to be important for them, rather than what is important for you. Think of the long term, in terms of prioritising what you want to give and leave for the future. That's what I would say.”

“When I talk to older people of my age, this is what I feel like saying to them. When they express no interest or concern about the climate crisis, that's what I want to say to them. It's not for them, it's for their grandchildren, for their descendants,” he sums up.

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