text: Disagree.  Checked online and the Canary Islands has  Mount Teide with an elevation of 12,198 ft, just couple thousand feet lower than Mauna Kea, online pictures show that the mountain, like Mauna Kea Mount Teide has a gradual incline, meaning they can use roads to bring up building materials and ferry astronomers in/out of the new TMT telescope on Mt Teide.  Also the year round weather is pretty mild not that much rain, unlike some steep mountain in Nepal or Alaska always covered in snow or in a snowstorm.  Yes, shipping construction materials and workers to Canary to build the 30m TMT is much more difficult and expensive that building it in Hawaii and traveling US, Canadian, Japanese, etc. astronomers would have a much easier time traveling back and forth to Hawaii than to the Canary Islands across the Atlantic, but clear they cannot tolerate holding up the construction because of incompetence by those in charge in Hawaii and a small group of protestors.