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Audiences at Mountainfilm in Telluride have known about Greg Mortenson and his book Three Cups of Tea for nearly a decade because he’s been a guest at several festivals. Ten months ago, reports by “60 Minutes” and Jon Krakauer shattered Mortenson's past, present and future with allegations of financial impropriety and personal fabrications. Mortenson has been publicly quiet since the, but as Outside magazine's Alex Heard reports, Mortenson — and the world around him — is very much in turmoil.

The United Nations released an alarming report recently about population, a topic that will be the focus of Mountainfilm in Telluride's 2012 Moving Mountains Symposium. According to the report, nearly 3 billion people could end up impoverished by 2050. The U.N. argues that "The current global development model is unsustainable. To achieve sustainability, a transformation of the global economy is required." Ironically, the number of people on the planet living in "absolute poverty" has reduced to 27 percent from 46 percent in 1990, but with natural resources rapidly diminishing, these numbers are predicted to head in the wrong direction in the future.

Even if you’re not a climber, this is a fascinating story. It’s got all the elements of a good tale — a strong cast of characters, a stunning setting, tragedy and many complicated plot twists.

Once upon a time, an Italian named Casare Maestri and an Austrian called Toni Egger climbed one of the world’s most difficult peaks, Patagonia’s Cerro Torre, in 1959. Their success was marred by two significant factors: 1. Egger died after they summited, and 2. Maestri’s claim of success turned out to be a bold-faced lie.

Maestri returned to the climb in 1970 to defend his honor and climb the mountain once more, this time fixing thousands of feet of rope and using a gas-powered drill to install approximately 400 bolts up the granite spire. Again, he claimed success, although he was actually a few hundred feet short of the true summit — a minor detail he dismissed, saying this section was “not really part of the mountain,” because “it’ll blow away one of these days.”

Our programming team — David Holbrooke and Emily Long — spent several days at the recent Sundance Film Festival, seeing documentaries to consider for Mountainfilm in Telluride.

Bill McKibben of 350.org finds inspiration in Tim DeChristopher’s message, which he summaries as “Do more. Dig deeper. Don’t be afraid.” McKibben’s Orion blog, “Dig Deeper,” discusses how the environmental movement had lost impact and needed new tactics. With climate change as the current challenge, the timing for the environmental movement’s power loss was unfortunate, but DeChristopher’s actions have enlivened the cause and sparked activism on new levels.

For more from Orion about Tim DeChristopher, check out Terry Tempest Williams’ interview, “What Love Looks Like.”

We meet so many inspirational characters through Mountainfilm, yet Aki Ra - the subject of A Perfect Soldier, Mountainfilm in Telluride 2011 - stands out. Now, he is featured in a piece in National Geographic by former Mountainfilm guest Mark Jenkins, along with the challenges and successes of de-mining in Cambodia.

At Mountainfilm last May, two of our favorite people, activist Tim DeChristopher and author Terry Tempest Williams, sat down together in a hotel room in Telluride and talked for three hours. Orion Magazine has published the transcript of their engaging and thoughtful conversation.

From the moment I heard about Bidder #70 raising his paddle inside a BLM auction to outbid oil and gas companies in the leasing of Utah’s public lands, I recognized Tim DeChristopher as a brave, creative citizen-activist. That was on December 19, 2008, in Salt Lake City. Since that moment, Tim has become a thoughtful, dynamic leader of his generation in the climate change movement. While many of us talk about the importance of democracy, Tim has put his body on the line and is now paying the consequences.

Each year, the Fund for Peace publishes a list of "failing states" that they catalog according to "their vulnerability to violent conflict and societal deterioration." They use twelve social, economic and political indicators - ranked 0-10 - so a combined score of 120 would mean a state is failing on every level. For instance, the top failed state in the world is Somalia with a score of 113.4, while Finland has the lowest score of only 19.7 (with the U.S. coming in at 34.8). What is particularly compelling, given the Mountainfilm focus on population is how much demographics impacts these scores. Almost all of the failing states have about 70% of their population under the age of thirty, compared to 35% or so for the stable countries.

With the total population on the planet exceeding 7 Billion there have been a lot of articles on the issue, which works out well for us at Mountainfilm in Telluride since we are focusing our 2012 Moving Mountains Symposium on the subject. The NY Times produced a terrific reader-generated photo essay on population, and this website has a breakdown of some of the basic numbers such as the youngest and oldest countries on earth (Uganda's Median Age is 15, while Monaco's is 50).

The possibility of a Third Industrial Revolution is likely, argues Wharton Business School professor Jeremy Rifkin in this Huffington Post piece. He argues that the conditions needed for this historical shift - a new energy source and a new communication medium - are here, just like "steam-powered print technology became the communication medium to manage the coal-fired rail infrastructure" of the 19th century and "electronic communications - the telephone and later, radio and television - became the communication medium to manage and market the oil-powered auto age and the mass consumer culture of the Second Industrial Revolution."