This is actually the green that took over the internet. It is the underlying green. Here, in this internet-safe scheme, it is called HTML#00CC00, but I recognize it on sight, and I know it also goes by the name chroma-key green.

This is the color that disappears in digital editing, which in my mind makes it the only real color, the color that makes all the digital fantasies possible.

If “Go green!” has any meaning, it is this. This green is where we’ve gone. This is the environment we really care about.

I remember it as the color of the glowing letters in my first email. I was in a basement in college when I first logged in and saw its luminous instructions.

The program itself was called “Pine,” and one did pine for messages in a way that now seems impossibly quaint. (For example, the words I email about this text will far exceed the number of words you read here.)

Pine made me choose a five-letter name for myself. Wanting to avoid “dushk,” I chose “petro.” At the time, the handle embarrassed me because it sounded like it was from American Gladiators; now it efficiently links the digital to what we hope is the late petrochemical era.

So please, look again at that green.