It you bother to read the wikipedia article he talks about (or the references therein), this is only likely to be a problem for keeping satellites in low-earth orbit. Medium-to-high and geostationary are probably gonna be fine because a) there is less junk up there, and b) there is more "up there" for the junk to be spread out. Actual departures from earth are probably gonna be fine, barring low-probability freak accidents.

But I told myself to get my ass to Mars.

Park a Solar-powered directed energy weapon array at Earth-Moon L1 and start shooting?