Almost 90 percent of Chinese cities, including Beijing and Tianjin, are “sub-healthy”, says a study conducted by the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies, *affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. According to the environmental health index, Beijing ranks as low as 206th among the 300 cities at the *prefecture level or above. The findings of the recent report should be a wake-up call for local governments to take environmental protection measures, says Yuan Guangkuo in an article on gmw.cn.