Yes, the ability to protest is great. That doesn't mean that this particular protest is well grounded or positive. TMT has fallen victim to an entirely unrelat

Yes, the ability to protest is great. That doesn't mean that this particular protest is well grounded or positive. TMT has fallen victim to an entirely unrelated political issue: the Hawaiian independence movement. There are people who believe that Hawaii is not legally/morally part of the United States, and they've chosen TMT as a highly visible project they can block, in order to assert sovereignty. They make a number of claims to justify blocking TMT in particular. Their environmental claims are nonsense (nuclear-powered telescopes - imagine that!). They also claim that Mauna Kea is sacred to native Hawaiians, so that building a telescope there is desecration. That claim is actually extremely dubious, from a historical point of view. While going to the summit was taboo for most people in old Hawaii (as were many activities, such as men and women eating together), native Hawaiians also dug the largest rock quarry in all of Polynesia on Mauna Kea. There is also surprisingly little mention of Mauna Kea in extant chants from the old religion. But it's an oral tradition, so definitively proving that Mauna Kea wasn't as sacred as anti-TMT protesters claim is impossible. What's important is that the independence movement has made Mauna Kea's supposed sacredness a central part of their creed. It's a sad situation, because TMT has the law on its side, and even with all the will in the world to accommodate opponents, TMT has no power to grant their central demand - independence from the US. The protesters fundamentally just want to block TMT entirely, as a statement about sovereignty over the mountain, and over Hawaii more broadly.