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Curious how the situation has developed in the few years since this was written
Biggest change is the new 5 year rule for deorbiting any new space objects under US jurisdiction. So we're not creating new space junk.

https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adopts-new-5-year-rule-deor...

More and cheaper launches also paradoxically makes space junk less of a problem given it makes maintaining a LEO fleet plausible. That, in turn, naturally regulates space junk given objects in LEO naturally decay on human time scales.
The article claimed the situation would get worse by itself even if we stopped launching entirely. Did it?
Maybe not space junk, but space pollution.

It's great that we have a maniac at control launching rockets for science! But doesn't do justice for the pollution that's thrown up upon launching.