• February 14^th, 2012

DeSmogBlog editor, Richard Littlemore, posted an article entitled ‘Heartland Insider Exposes Institute’s Budget and Strategy’ stating an anonymous source had provided him with “the Heartland Institute’s budget, fundraising plan, its Climate Strategy for 2012 and sundry other documents (all attached) that prove all of the worst allegations that have been leveled against the organization” and attached said documents to post.

• February 15^th,  2012

The Heartland Institute confirms it mistakenly leaked documents, but claims one, the Climate Strategy Memo detailing pushing anti-climate change curriculum in schools, was a fake.

• February 17^th, 2012

Scientists involved in the debunked ‘climategate scandal,’ in which scientist internal emails were stolen, misconstrued, and widely misinterpreted, publish an open letter in The Guardian decrying Heartland’s hypocritical attitude.

• February 20^th, 2012
  

Peter Gleick publishes an article on the Huffington Post admitting that he had ‘received an anonymous document in the mail describing what appeared to be details of the Heartland Institute’s climate program strategy,’ and then went on to use a fake name in order to obtain more documents.

• February 21^st, 2012

The Heartland Institute begins damage control, including sending many cease and desist letters to organizations discussing the event such as DeSmogBlog and the National Wildlife Foundation.

• February 22^nd, 2012

The leaked documents have also lead  ‘Raúl Grijalva, a Democratic member of Congress, to call for a congressional investigation into whether Goklany, described as a senior policy analyst at the Department of the Interior, had broken rules by accepting a monthly stipend of $1,000 from Heartland.’

• Today

As of today, Gleick is facing a possible firing from his job due to ethics violations, along with commendations of ‘hero’ from some environmental organizations. What do you think? Is Gleick a villain or a hero?