Hi Time,
Those are good questions and I can only answer from my perspective so here goes. You are right, I try my darndest to avoid doing anything that will cause suffering to any creature that had a mother, or as you say, anything with a face. So I've learned which companies not only kill animals for food, but do tests on animals to see if the dishwashing soap for example will burn my eyes and I won't go into details on how they discover this. I'm sure that most can figure that out. I don't buy feather or down products, because these are ripped out of living ducks and geese on average, every six weeks until I would assume, they don't grow properly any more at which time they are slaughtered. Grab a handful of hair sometime and pull it out and that will give you an idea what the birds experience repeatedly and over half their bodies.

As for plants, they do not have a brain or a brain stem or nerve endings so their 'experience' of suffering is far different than an animals. I do think that any of the so-called reactions that some would like to point to as being evidence of 'suffering' or 'fear' of plants is more than likely a reaction to vibrations of energy because at our very base level, that is all that matter is, energy that vibrates and pulses. If you swish a pool of water with your hand, it causes ripples that move away from your hand. Is that fear or the result of pain?

Regarding the effect of plant farming on the environment, consider first that production of animals and the food that they eat causes manure, pesticide, herbicide and antibiotic runoff that impacts our environment. 85% of the worlds soy goes to feeding animals and that soy receives regular treatments with Roundup to kill weeds, not to mention pesiticides. It takes more feed (hay and soy products) to feed cattle for instance, than it does to feed humans, because keep in mind that a good percentage of that feed goes to produce energy for movement and manure. It is also necessary to consider that animals are also prodigious users of water and as well, the process of turning them into packaged products also uses vast quantities of water as slaughterhouses and plants are cleaned with what in effect is our drinking water.

And while cattle can be grazed on land that is not good for producing human food, the wildlife (i.e. natural predators) are killed off to protect those cattle. Wolves neared extinction in several of the states but were reintroduced in the 1990's in several areas. But unfortunately, Idaho and Montana have once again declared open season on them. Wild horses are also regularly rounded up by the BLM, taken off the land, and you the taxpayer, pay for the maintenance of those animals in small pens, all so that ranchers can graze their cattle, for free, on federal land. How benign is animal production?

Oil is a product of both plant and animal sources. And we humans had nothing to do with the whole process. The forests and bogs and plants died naturally and yes, we do all benefit from their deaths at this point. But at this point in our history, plastics can now be made of soy, which by the way is not all that healthy to consume for either us or the cattle that it is fed to. The plastics that are made of soy and corn are also biodegradable and so are less damaging to our environment.

Composting or throwing away apple cores and other vegetable products not only enable the spread of more food plants but are simply reptitions of what has transpired across the planet for aeons. It is a natural process that does only good for the earth, unlike the production of food animals. Throwing away or composting vegetable matter does not kill or harm lifes cycle.

I hope this explanation is clear and answers your questions. If anything isn't clear, I'd be happy to try again.