Washington state voters on Tuesday rejected an initiative that would have required foods containing genetically engineered ingredients to be labeled.

The vote was 54.8% opposed to labeling and 45.2% in favor of it.

Had it passed, Initiative 522 would have made the state the first in the nation to require such labeling.

The initiative was the most expensive in state history, though it was largely fought by out-of-state interests.

The No on 522 campaign set a record for fundraising, bringing in $22 million in donations according to The Seattle Times. Just $550 came from Washington residents, according to the newspaper. The top five contributors were the Grocery Manufacturers Association, Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer, Dow AgroSciences and Bayer CropScience.

The largest donor to the pro-labeling campaign were California-based Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps and the Center for Food Safety in Washington, D.C. However the initiative garnered almost 30% of its funding from individuals in Washington state, the Times reported.

Food industry ads claimed that the initiative would raise food prices. Labels would mislead consumers into thinking that products that contain genetically engineered ingredients are ‘somehow different, unsafe or unhealthy,’ said Brian Kennedy of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a food industry group based in Washington, D.C.

The Yes on 522 campaigns […]

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The final chapter of America’s Promise, a high-school textbook on American history, ends with a rallying cry to national mythology. ‘The history of the United States is one of challenges faced, problems resolved, and crises overcome,’ it states. ‘Throughout their history Americans have remained an optimistic people, carrying this optimism into the new century. The full promise of America has yet to be realised. This is the real promise of America; the ability to dream of a better world to come.’

Such are the assumptions beamed from the torch of Lady Liberty, coursing through the veins of the nation’s political culture and imbibed with mothers’ milk. Their nation, many will tell you, is not just a land mass but an ideal – a shining city on the hill beckoning a bright new tomorrow and a dazzling dawn for all those who want it badly enough. Such devout optimism, even (and at times particularly) in the midst of adversity makes America, in equal parts, both exciting and delusional. According to Gallup, since 1977 people have consistently believed their financial situation will improve next year even when previous years have consistently been worse.

But when President Barack Obama was planning his run for a […]

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The disappearance of internal-combustion engines is far from inevitable today, but several groups and governments are now predicting when the last gasoline vehicles will be sold.

The website focuses on the auto industry’s future, the evolution of cars beyond fossil fuels, and the green movement’s relevance to car shoppers today. For more stories on green cars, click here.

The latest prediction comes from a particularly unlikely source: Shell Oil Company, one of the largest petroleum producers in the world.

The company predicts in its latest report that petroleum-powered cars could be nearly gone by 2070.

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The concept is part of Shell’s ‘New Lens Scenarios’, reports Autoblog Green. They are forward-looking predictions that help the company decide how to operate over the coming years.

Shell is actually no stranger to such scenario building, and 2013 actually marks the 40th year of this policy. This year, Shell has developed two New Lens Scenarios, which it terms ‘Mountains’ and ‘Oceans’.

Each predicts a future based on two possible paths the global economy may take over the coming decades, when affected by technological developments and the global population.

Changing pressures

In both scenarios, that global population is expected to top 9 billion by 2050. The future could be […]

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A new study from LifeWay Research reveals that more than two-thirds of young adults who attend a Protestant church for at least a year in high school will stop attending church regularly for at least a year between the ages of 18 and 22.

As young people transition from high school into the workforce or college life, they are faced with many choices – including whether to continue attending church. Although this decision is a source of concern for parents and church leaders, discussion of the reasons young adults choose the direction they do has largely been speculative.

‘Lots of alarming numbers have been tossed around regarding church dropouts,’ said Ed Stetzer, vice president of LifeWay Research and Ministry Development, the research arm of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. ‘We wanted to get at the real situation with clear research – and there is some bad news here, no question. But, there are also some important solutions to be found in the research. When we know why people drop out, we can address how to help better connect them.’

To uncover the reasons young people leave church, LifeWay Research conducted a survey in April and May 2007 […]

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Late last week, a Web site that claims that there is no scientific consensus on global warming published a leaked draft report on the impacts of global warming. The leak was apparently intended to embarrass the authors of the report, which is the latest installment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. However, it seems mostly to have had the opposite effect: what the leaked document shows is just how dire the impacts are likely to be. The report was the lead story on the front page of Saturday’s Times, under the two-column headline ‘Climate Change Seen Posing Risk to Food Supplies.

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