HaP: "Let me ask some questions then:
How old are you? Where do you live? Are you a vegitarian? Do you like long walks on the beach? How do you feel about killing plants? Do you eat plants?"I am 25. I live in Wolfville, NS, Canada. I teach in a rural school nearby. I know many people who hunt, for sport and for subsistence. Prior to this I lived in Ottawa, ON, Canada. It is a largish city, and the hunters I met there were all sport hunters. I love walking. The beach is okay, but I prefer the forest. I usually end up standing awestruck if I go to the beach. I feel that killing anything for food when it is necessary is okay. I feel that killing anything for sport or unnecessarily is not okay. I do not feel a sense of power or conquest when I kill plants.
Regarding plants, I eat them because it is more nergy efficient to do so (the whole 10% trophic levels thing.) I also will admit that I don't think plants suffer to the same extent as animals. While I cannot prove this, and while I do believe plants can feel to a certain extent, it does make me less uncomfortable to kill a plant. Besides, as I mentioned elsewhere, if I kill an animal, the animal AND the plants it ate had to die.
You asked me elsewhere about the cow and the wheat. It's a little more complicated than you make it out to be. As I said, if I ate the cow, there would need to be, overall, more wheat. Also, if I chose not to eat the cow, then people would not factory farm cows, and their numbers would dwindle off naturally. I am sure they would find some lovely grass to eat when they turned feral. The current cow population is artificially maintained, not naturally formed.
So, yes, I eat plants, yes I consider them equal to animals, and yes I consider humans equal to all other life forms. Eating plants: a) minimizes suffering b) is more energy efficient c) is more healthy d) is more environmentally sustainable e) is not based on some macho bullshit power thang.
