Catastrophism does not refer - as the lexicon suggests - to a particular branch of socialist thought, but to a perticular view in geology and paleontology. In the 19th century a heated debate erupted between the catastrophists, who viewed all geological formations as the result of sudden upheavals and the uniformitarists who thought that slow processes over long periods of time were responsible. Both sides had some big names on their side: Catastrophism could point to Cuvier for instance, whereas the big names in Uniformitarism were Lyell and Hutton. Uniformitarism won this debate, not primarily because it had better support in data, but because it had a research program: actualism, shortly defined by Hutton as "the present is the key to the past". This view in turn influenced Darwin and his theory of evolution through natural selection is based in uniformitarist thought. Catastrophism kept lacking a research program and fell out of the focus of science - if anybody expressed catastrophist views in the 1950s it was creationists.

In 1980 this changed, when on the 6th of June Alvarez et al. published "Extraterrestrial Cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction", Science, 208, 1095 - 1108, providing the first evidence that the extinction at the end of the Cretaceous had been caused by a bolide impact. They had found one particular way to find evidence for a particular type of catastrophe in the geological past. In addition to that it now became feasible to run computer simulations of possible catastrophes and compare the patterns they´d produce with patterns found in the rock formations on earth - previously such comparison could only be done between actual processes producing sedimentary patterns for instance (actualism). Catastrophism had aquired a research program!

This field of research attracted scientists which could be labeled modern day catastrophists, in paleontology in particular a group of people that was keen to use quantitative methods to figure out the effect of catastrophes on earths biota - David Raup, Jack Sepkoski, Philip Signor, Jere Lipps and Peter Ward, to name but a few. One thing they noted was that past mass extinctions bear an eerie resemblance to patterns found today - increased risk of extinction for ecological specialists for instance (found for herbivorous insects at the KT boundary by Labandeira et al., now confirmed for bats today). Their work does show that the world we inhabit is indeed "ready to blow" and the culprit for this is the human species. We do know how our actions increase extinction rates and we also know that the effect we have on the biosphere is a lasting one. We do have practical solutions (and more and more become known each day). We do lack awareness and we do lack political will though.

I just remembered Greg was once a member of Greenpeace but he quit because he thought it was a bad religion, so I guess this could very well be an attack of his on what he sees as self-appointed rightousness

"Maybe it's time to make room for another species,
This is the 21st century!" sounds quite pessimistic to me, yeah...

but I don't think greg sees so little chances for a change. the song is more a bit exaggerated, I think

Sounds like Greg is very pessimistic about the chance of humanity changing it's ways

and now the lyrics says "carbon for free" wich I guess he means carbondixoxide

The line "our kids can't throw away the carbon copy" refers to carbon decay which occurs for all materials made of carbon..if we throw away materials that could have been recycled, the debris will keep piling up to where there will be no more room for anything, not even life. Our children will be left with a world of pollution.

"Our kids can't throw away the carbon copy (???? does anyone understand this?)"
Easy. A lot of business paperwork comes in multiple copies, called carbon copies. At the place I worked, it was 3 copies: 1 for you, 1 for the file, and 1 for the office. Most people just end up trashing their copies, so the line implies that we won't be able to afford that kind of waste in the future.

i feel that the previous description is close to the interpretation i am going to make, i feel that by modern day catastrophist he means that in respect to peoples "modern day prosepective" the ones who "know all the right equations" are catastrophic to the way of financial and economincal life of the people who are in power and trying to sustain or maintain their present way of life which means the destruction or enslavement of earth and its resources

This song is taken from the look of the common citizen. In modern times, they see people trying to do good for the world as the an annoyance, which is hyperbolized in this song as catastrophists.