There have been a lot of attacks lately on the affect eating meat has on the environment. Granted, most of these sources conveniently use factory farming animals as the only way to raise animals (it fits their argument better).

Here are a few to look at:

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/meat-climate-change-worse.html

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/vegan-cruelty-free-meals.html

So, how does the Paleo crowd respond? My response has always been to eat grass fed, preferably animals that you raise yourself.

On a side note, grain agriculture has been responsible for ALL of the man-made deserts in history, so going vegan has its own environmental issues.

BUT, I do realize that factory-farms (both animal and veggie) have large environmental impacts, from nitrogen in the water supplies, to CO2 output and mass desertification of fertile soils.

What do you guys think about this? Is there a solution that could be wide spread (permaculture + grass-fed animals?)?

This is not an attempt to debate global warming here, so let's try and leave that out. Let's focus on how we can reduce pollution in general from animal-based foods on a wide-spread basis.