Microsoft's Craig Mundie showed this computer model Thursday at the University of Washington to explain the environmental insights to be gleaned from programs that work with huge amounts of data.

So immersed is Microsoft in technology that most people inside the company use the term “ecosystem” to refer not to trees or oceans but to the software and devices that work with Windows.

But some people at Microsoft have been turning their attention to the natural world, and to ways that technology could help scientists and others improve the environment. The trend has given the company an unlikely, behind-the-scenes role in global environmental research — even as it has taken heat on environmental issues from Greenpeace and others.

The situation also highlights a philosophical difference between current and former Microsoft executives over the appropriate role for technology in addressing environmental issues.

Much of Microsoft’s recent move into environmental research can be traced to its work on new ways of working with large amounts of data from distributed networks of sensors and small devices. It's one of the areas that Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, has identified as critical to the company’s future -- as underscored by Mundie during a U.S. college tour this week.

In one project, for example, Microsoft Research’s Computational Biology and Environmental Science Group is creating a model for predicting how regional economic and policy decisions could affect the rate of deforestation in different parts of the world.

Another example is Project Trident, a Microsoft system that helps scientists analyze, work with and visualize data from a variety of sources without programming expertise. Project Trident has been used in initiatives including the University of Washington’s Project Neptune and related efforts to study the ocean using networks of environmental sensors and recording instruments.

The company’s Hohm initiative aims to help consumers and utilities better track and understand their energy usage -- with one ultimate goal of encouraging conservation. And Microsoft’s “eXtreme Computing Group,” formed in June of this year, is exploring issues including the long-term design of data centers.

“The mantra is to say, rather than looking at piecemeal optimization for data centers, back up and say, if you took a blank sheet of paper, what’s the best way to design these for energy efficiency, for reliability, programmability, to support the ability of applications to span data centers for energy efficiency?” said Dan Reed, corporate vice president of the group. “In essence, we’re starting over and asking those questions.”

Those are examples of the types of projects that make Rob Bernard’s eyes light up. Microsoft’s chief environmental strategist can talk at length about the potential role of technology in addressing many of Earth’s problems.

In many cases, Microsoft collaborates closely with governments and university researchers on environmental research, amplifying the effects of its work.

At the same time, Bernard is pragmatic. Technology alone isn’t enough, he says. The key is technology that helps people make the changes needed to improve the environment.

“You need people,” he says. “Technology is a core ingredient, but it’s not the only ingredient.”

One former Microsoft executive advocates an even more radical approach. Nathan Myhrvold, the former Microsoft chief technology officer, has been working on a series of “geoengineering” projects in his current role as head of Bellevue-based invention house Intellectual Ventures.

One Intellectual Ventures project, dubbed the Stratoshield, proposes to address climate change by pumping liquid sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere through nozzles in a hose lifted more than 15 miles into the atmosphere using helium-filled balloons. The idea would be to dim the sun in critical areas of the world by just enough to reduce or reverse the effects of global warming.

He calls such technological steps the most effective way to make significant improvements in the environment.

“I don’t see the political process here or around the world giving us a dramatic solution soon,” Myhrvold said in an interview. “I just don’t. So, effectively, the paradox is that the people who are the strongest advocates (against) global warming have been positioning us down a policy path which is only viable if it’s not that serious a problem."

Bernard isn’t persuaded.

“There’s always a possibility, but I think any dependency on geoengineering is kind of frightening,” Bernard said. “At a simple level, think about all the invasive species we’ve introduced inadvertently through unintended consequences. You never can predict everything.”

Bernard sees technology playing a critical role, but more as something that helps humans make significant changes.

He cites, as an example, the need for better systems to help commuters share rides. Rather than requiring people to log on to a site and go through the inconvenience of finding a ride, he says, the technolology should make it simple for them by automatically comparing worker schedules and destinations and suggesting to people that it would be smart for them to share a ride.

That shows how technology could help save the Earth by creating “a massive simplification of complex behavior to optimize resources,” Bernard says. “That’s huge. There’s too much complexity in the behavior changes that are required (to help the environment). We need to simplify and automate those things.”

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Rob Bernard Looks Back, And Ahead

As Microsoft’s chief environmental strategist, Rob Bernard had a list of goals for 2009 that included reducing the company’s carbon footprint, spreading its internal green initiatives beyond the Redmond headquarters, making sure Windows 7 shipped with energy-saving features, and expanding the company’s environmental partnerships.

In each of those areas, he and his team have made progress. At the same time, the company has been in the spotlight in environmental circles for a different issue — its decision to remain a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce even as other companies have dropped out in protest over what they see as the chamber’s skepticism on climate change and hostility to greenhouse gas regulation.

Microsoft says it is a strong proponent of cutting emissions.

“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has never spoken for nor done work on behalf of Microsoft regarding climate change legislation, and we have not participated in the Chamber’s climate initiatives,” the company said in a statement.

Some were looking for bolder action.

“Microsoft has never been considered an environmental leader, but it’s got a decent climate policy on paper,” wrote Jonathan Hiskes of the environmental news site Grist.org, who asked Bernard about the company’s position on the U.S. Chamber during a September press tour of a Microsoft server lab. That lab, a short drive from the Redmond campus, aims to replace facilities scattered around the company and save energy by consolidating the servers into an energy-efficient building.

In his post, Grist’s Hiskes pointed to that lab as evidence of the company’s environmental progress and asked, “Given all this, why is Microsoft a Chamber member?”

Microsoft cited its work on a variety of environmental initiatives and asserted that “the greatest value Microsoft brings to the fight against climate change is our expertise on the role software and technology can play in reducing carbon emissions.”

In September, for example, Microsoft announced a partnership with the Carbon Disclosure Project to provide technology for a new version of the group’s online system.

Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system, released Oct. 22, includes a series of changes intended to improve the energy efficiency of PCs. One key now will be seeing whether third-party applications take advantage of those improvements or seek to override them, Bernard said.

In the meantime, Bernard said Microsoft has been making progress toward reducing its level of “carbon emissions per unit of revenue” by at least 30 percent by 2012, compared with 2007 levels. One of the biggest areas has been a reduction in per capita employee travel.

The latest initiatives build on changes the company has made internally in everything from the energy efficiency of its data centers to the ability to compost the utensils used by employees.

So what’s next?

“Now the question is, how do we really take outside the four walls of Microsoft the things that we’ve learned and we’ve pushed on, and start to drive even more change at the industry level,” Bernard said. “When I think about the year or two ahead, I think about taking the stuff that we’re doing and learning and really scaling it.”

And finally, for the record, Bernard says he is still driving that 2001 Volvo, though “less than ever.” As documented in previous installments of this series, the Microsoft environmental chief decided to stick with the Volvo after determining that the environmental impact of manufacturing a more energy-efficient vehicle would be greater than that of continuing to drive his old one.

At the same time, he said he was intrigued by some of the cars shown at the Frankfurt Auto Show, which highlighted a series of electric vehicles. He’s looking forward to seeing which come to market.

“When I get a new car,” he promised, “I’m going to send you an email.”