Einstein-Kim Project

Environmental stressors (Asian dust, air pollution, marine pollution and noise) as contributors to premature mortality on a global scale

CURRENT STATUS

Asia's environmental crisis

Currently, 17 megacities in Asia rank among the top 30 cities in terms of premature cardiovascular mortality and account for 7% of the global burden of disease attributable to outdoor air pollution alone. Also, the fine dust concentration level is higher in Seoul than in many other major cities around the world: PM10 concentration is 1.4 times, 2.2 times, 2.4 times and 2.8 times higher than in Los Angeles, Paris, London and Tokyo, respectively; PM2.5 concentration 1.9 times, 2.1 times and 2.2 times higher than in Tokyo, London and Los Angeles, respectively. Hardly a day has gone by in recent months without alerts for fine air concentrations. In January 2018 alone, a total of 36 alerts were issued nationwide for PM10. The number of alerts issued warning of ultra-fine dust (PM2.5) totaled 81 in the same month, a 68.8 percent increase year-on-year. Furthermore, fine dust concentrations exceeding the Korean daily average air quality standard have been frequently reported lately.

Need for the project

Ground breaking nature and potential impact of the research project

In our Einstein Project, we want to create an institutional structure in which policy advocacies are made so that Asian politicians and government officials could be educated in energy-environmental issues. Environmental Protection, Energy Policy and Poverty Reduction should not be treated separately but in an integrated manner. Global environmental problems can be solved ONLY with concerted strong Governmental interventions. Therefore, it is important to create a Research and Policy Advocacy Center in East Asia which is the greatest source of Air Pollution right now, having the greatest concentration of industrial manufacturing factories in the world. Only when the air pollution issues of East Asia are solved, can the rest of the world could be relieved from the looming environment disaster coming from East Asia. Note that the greatest number of densely polluted industrial cities are all located in the small areas of Northeast Asia, surrounding the Yellow Sea between Korean peninsula and the East Coast of China, stretching from Manchurian Yodong peninsula down to Peking, Tenchin, Chingdao, Shanghai, Shinzen, Hong Kong as well as Inchon, Seoul, etc., the epicenters of fine dust air pollution for the rest of the world. A research Center in East Asia to monitor and do environmental policy advocacy is an urgent necessity. As the 1 st research project, the East Asian Air quality study would be the most timely and necessary one today.

Objectives

There are two main objectives of the PROJECT.

First, to identify the mechanisms underlying the initiation, progression and the clinical consequences of traffic noise, an emerging cardiovascular risk factor, and additive effects with air pollution. Second, to investigate policy strategies to tackle Northeast Asia's growing environmental crisis.

To reach the aim of the project, we propose the following work plan:

1. To identify mechanisms behind noise-induced vascular and cerebral damage

2. To investigate potential synergistic effects of traffic noise and particulate matter

3. To reveal in translational experimental studies the effects of noise on healthy subjects

4. To elucidate the impact of noise and/or ambient air pollution on the development of subclinical cardiovascular disease and asymptomatic organ damage in the population of the Korean Peninsula and China.

5. To investigate policy strategies to counter environmental threats, including Asian dust resulting from

desertification, air pollution, and marine pollution in adjoining sea areas.

6. To investigate the interrelations of Environmental Protection, Energy Policy and Poverty Reduction

What is the Einstein-Kim Project and why Einstein now?

The Need.

We must bring peace between North and South Korea in order to avoid such threats and another civil war, possibly a nuclear and chemical one. Part of the problem is a lack of understanding between the two peoples because ideological differences between the two governments, one authoritarian and the other democratic, and consequentially nearly 70 years of separation from one another. A humanist like Einstein would do something for North Korea. What would he do? What could he do? If Einstein were reincarnated as a leader of North Korea (however unlikely it may seem) to implement his political social ideas, can we not then expect revolutionary innovations in North Korea?

The plan.

There are a number of areas where we urgently need and have to make cautious non-threatening steps forward on North Korea issues, and this is the time to do it. Here is a list of some of our contemplated programs, which can be delivered in the form of cartoons, videos, animations and/or computer programs, and a series of workshops in the North and/or South.

1) Einsteinian resolution of N. Korea nuclear issue

2) Einstein Gamification of Mathematics

3) Interactive Computer Game to Teach Einstein's Theory of Relativity

4) Albert Einstein Exhibition on Tour in North Korea

5) Seed Spray Method to resolve food shortages

6) Children's Peace Train from S.N. Korea to Europe

7) Einstein's Thought experiments

Einstein Exhibition on Tour in North Korea

Organizing Albert Einstein Exhibition on Tour in North Korea would cost ca. CHF 500,000.

Establish an Einstein House in South Korea

Establishing an Einstein House in South Korea for all our research affiliates to collaborate on the EINSTEIN-KIM PROJECT. At the present without any common infrastructure facilities, each of our research affiliates works separately at home or in a tiny shared room on university campus. We have identified a possible property for sale at CHF 600,000, not just to house research & development resources and enable seminars, workshops but also to create inter-faith dialogue and connections and lines of communication between North Koreans and other nationalities.

Under the premise that Einstein's Political Philosophy provides the ideal future society of the humanity of the 21st Century globally, it is proposed that a Research Center be established where Einstein's thoughts on Peace, War, Society and Politics are researched. Einstein's passion for social justice and enduring pacifism must be propagated throughout the world. Therefore, we propose that Einstein Houses be built, first in Panmunjom and then in all the great cities of the world. The purpose is that these Einstein houses serves as the meeting place for the people whose share in the idea of Einsteinian Pacifism and Social Justice to meet, discuss and organize events that at once social and academic.

Einstein Peace International School

Einstein Peace International School, an experimental boarding school where Einsteinian concepts of pacifism, creativity and social justice are nurtured in short, a new breed of intellectual and moral leaders of the future. The first such school is to be located in North Korea or DMZ, at Panmunjom. Kim Jongeun might find this idea to his liking, as he would then be able to present his country to the rest of the world as Peace-loving country in the spirit of Einstein's (pacifism, neutrality, anti-nulcear monopoly). Eventually, it is porposed that such a school be opened in Switzerland, in USA and at many different parts of the world. Budget: a preliminary preparatory budget of one million dollars to hire staff, write up the Einsteinian Educational Philosophy and Mission as well as create Einstrinian Peace Curricula, to be published as books. Afterwards, the construction of the school building at about 20 Million Dollars and the staffing of the school, reruiting students, and the operational expenses for another 10 Million. Total: for the first two years, 50 Million Dollars.

We are currently in contact with several eminent specialists/professors to appoint to distinguished professorships for EINSTEIN-KIM PROJECT.

Project Goals:

The Einstein Project aims at helping North Koreans via a holistic vocational training program and/or curriculum development research.

Tailored to needs and demands of North Koreans, the Project will be targeted at North Koreans whose job is blocked by lack of access to vocational training, information, networks, and teaching materials by experts with minimum 10 years experience of teaching and research at the university or vocational schools.

Need for the innovations of vocational Training System for North Korea:

1. Vocational training for North Korea is not only a necessity for encouraging reform in the present but will also be of utmost importance to the country once it completely opens up to the rest of the world. It is at this time that North Korea will be in need of much assistance and have greater opportunities for engagement and exchange with other nations than any other time in its history. Having access to new information and technologies will undoubtedly fuel an eagerness for development and desire for access to new knowledge, for which innovative vocational training will play a substantial role.

2. The innovation of vocational education system for North Korea is very much needed in order to enhance the employment rate of young people.

3. Any cooperative effort to develop vocational abilities of North Korean workers should be carried out based on the concepts of peaceful co-existence, mutual benefit, and complementation in the short-term, and in the long-term to try to achieve the structural and qualitative development of North Korean human resources.