For years, [Mark] Lynas clung to what can only be described as a religious conviction that g.m. foods were unnatural. It never mattered to him that dozens of scientific organizations, including the British Royal Academy and the National Academy of Sciences in the U.S., had studied the issue and had come to the opposite conclusion. “In my view, the technology moves entirely in the wrong direction,” he wrote in the Guardian, in 2008, “intensifying human technological manipulation of nature when we should be aiming at a more holistic ecological approach instead.”But Lynas has written widely, and thoughtfully, about climate change, and he came to realize that he would need to rely on science to bolster his positions in a world filled with skeptics. As it turns out, it’s hard to limit a firm belief in science to one discipline. So he began to look at the science of agriculture, too. What he found changed his position and his life; and if a sufficient number of environmentalists listen to him, it may help change the lives of millions of others.