We’ve been extremely busy. Politicians also need to relax after a long day. —‘Miss Dina’, a prostitute, as quoted in "Climate conference sex boom"

The earth was not the only thing heating up as politicians gathered in the Danish capital to try to slow it down. What with street demonstrators and police clashes, stubborn developing countries, overheated developed countries and grandstanding heads of state, many conference attendees felt the need to lower their temperatures a notch. And they couldn't have come to a better place to do it. Prostitution is legal in Denmark, so climate conference attendees availed themselves freely of the many services for hire.

And I do mean "freely." The mayor and city council of Copenhagen had sent out postcards to hotels in the area—

Dear hotel owner, we would like to urge you not to arrange contacts between hotel guests and prostitutes.

They even came up with a slogan: "Be sustainable – don’t buy sex."

I'm not sure what to make of the slogan. As a friend who has leapt past the boundaries of youth once remarked, sex can be surprisingly affordable.

Well, the prostitutes of Copenhagen—at least the members of the Sex Workers Interest Group—had no problem deciding what to make of it. They found the postcard' and its message reprehensible and discriminatory and fought back by offering free sex to anyone who could produce one of the postcards and show his identity card from the climate conference. What a conference souvenir that will make!

It must have been similar to the 2004 Republican Convention in New York, only without the sex crime.

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Tags: Copenhagen, Denmark, COP15, climate conference, prostitution, sex workers