Ecological footprinting is not that hard. You simply look at the amount of resources humans use. If you want to do it country by country, just look at the resources each country uses: for example, how much paper does a country use each year? How many miles does the average citizen drive per day? How much electricity does the country use, and how is it produced? How much waste does the country produce? How do they farm? How much food do they consume?

The BBC method appears flawed, but it still can provide a general picture of which countries have the biggest footprint per person. Note that the WWF assesses nations' footprints in a variety of different ways. In many cases, the US does better than developing countries, in others it does worse.

There is no doubt that the US, in general, consumes more per person than any other country in the world.

Also, don't assume that technology will solve problems by default. Computers, for example, were supposed to reduce our dependence on paper and save the forests, but we now use more paper than ever before, resulting in a variety of increased ecological impacts.