Numbers can reveal patterns but hide deeper realities. Learn why uncertainty, critical thinking and resilience matter in health, floods and carbon markets
MALAYSIA recorded RM933.4 million in flood-related losses in 2024. Almost one in six Malaysian adults lives with diabetes. A carbon credit represents one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent avoided or removed from the atmosphere.
Floods, human health and carbon markets may appear to be three entirely different stories. But what connects them? In each case, a number communicates something important while concealing a larger reality.
The flood figure cannot capture every displaced family or failure in planning. The national diabetes rate cannot describe an individual’s daily effort, setbacks or gradual recovery. A carbon credit can quantify an environmental claim without revealing whether its benefit is additional, permanent or fair.
These are not stories about unreliable numbers. They are about the limits of what numbers can tell us and our tendency to demand certainty from evidence that provides only part of the answer.
We depend on numbers because they make complex realities appear manageable. They allow us to compare performance, monitor change and make decisions. The danger begins when we mistake what can be counted for everything that matters.
Anyone who has tried to improve a health indicator understands this tension. The body rarely rewards effort in a straight line. A disappointing reading may follow several disciplined days while an encouraging result may appear before lasting improvement has been secured.
The number is real but one result cannot define the entire journey. Progress becomes visible through patterns sustained over time, supported by resilience and the perseverance to continue when improvement is not immediate.
This capacity to respect evidence without demanding instant certainty resembles what the English poet John Keats called “negative capability”. He used the term to describe the ability to remain with uncertainty, with mystery and doubt without anxiously forcing an explanation.
Negative capability is not the rejection of facts or an excuse for indecision. It is the discipline of recognising what the evidence establishes, what remains unknown and what responsible action is still possible. This matters greatly in sustainability, where complex environmental and social systems are increasingly compressed into scores, targets and dashboards.
An organisation may receive a favourable environmental, social and governance rating even when significant issues fall outside the assessment. An emissions reduction may look impressive until we discover that carbon-intensive activity was transferred elsewhere. A distant net-zero target may attract attention while immediate operations remain largely unchanged.
The measures are not necessarily wrong but they become misleading when treated as complete representations of reality. Carbon credits demonstrate this problem particularly well. Malaysia’s Bursa Carbon Exchange is an important development that can direct finance towards emissions reduction and conservation. Yet, the apparent simplicity of a carbon credit can conceal difficult questions.
Behind one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent may be a protected forest, renewable-energy installation, methane-capture system or biomass project. Each credit relies on assumptions about what would have happened without the project, how accurately the reduction was measured and whether the benefit will last.
A forest conservation credit, for example, may appear to offer a straightforward exchange: emissions generated in one place are balanced by protecting trees elsewhere.
Yet, would the forest genuinely have been cleared without carbon finance? Can it remain protected from logging, fire or future development? Has damaging activity simply shifted to another location? Are surrounding communities benefiting or are they excluded from decisions concerning land on which they depend?
Such questions do not make every carbon credit worthless. They show why purchasing a verified number cannot replace judgement. Negative capability allows us to use an imperfect mechanism while remaining honest about its limitations.
The responsible sequence for companies should, therefore, be clear. Measure emissions accurately, reduce what can reasonably be reduced and transform the activities causing the greatest impacts.
Credits should be considered for genuinely difficult residual emissions, not used to preserve avoidable pollution. Companies should also disclose where their credits originated, how they were verified and what risks could affect their permanence. This is less convenient than displaying a simple claim of carbon neutrality but it is more credible.
Sustainability should not rest on the confidence with which a claim is presented. It should rest on the quality of the questions asked before that claim was made.
The same discipline should shape our response to Malaysia’s flood losses. The 2024 total is disturbing, particularly because damage to living quarters increased from RM168.3 million in 2023 to RM372.2 million. These figures should lead us deeper into the system rather than become statistics repeated until the next monsoon.
We should ask where losses recur, how land development has altered water movement, whether drainage and waterways are maintained, which communities remain most exposed and whether reconstruction reduces future vulnerability or merely restores previous conditions.
We must also recognise what the calculation omits: interrupted education, lost income, health effects, emotional distress and the exhaustion of families forced to rebuild repeatedly.
No single drainage project, government agency or public-awareness campaign can resolve this. Flood resilience requires coordinated land-use planning, infrastructure maintenance, ecological protection, early-warning systems, community preparedness and transparent learning after every event.
Progress must be judged across several monsoon seasons, not declared after one completed project or one year of lower losses.
Negative capability, therefore, does not tell us to wait for perfect information. It offers a practical way to move forward when certainty is impossible. Before responding to a number, determine whether it represents an isolated result or a sustained pattern. Ask what was measured, what was omitted and which assumptions shaped the calculation. Distinguish between actions that can be tested and reversed and decisions that may cause permanent harm.
Most importantly, establish when the intervention will be reviewed and what evidence would justify changing it. Persistence must also be separated from stubbornness. A health plan should not be abandoned because one reading disappoints. A flood-mitigation strategy should not be declared successful after one quieter monsoon. A company should not assume that purchasing carbon credits completes its climate responsibility.
Perseverance means remaining committed to the objective while being willing to change the method when evidence demands it.
We do not need fewer numbers. We need a more mature relationship with them. Numbers should neither frighten us into impulsive action nor reassure us into complacency. They should begin a continuing process of inquiry, action, observation and correction.
Whether a number concerns our health, an organisation’s emissions or Malaysia’s flood losses, the responsibility is the same: read it, question it, act on it and remain present long enough to learn from what follows.
The courage to admit that we do not yet know everything is only the beginning. Negative capability becomes valuable when it gives us the resilience to continue, the humility to learn and the wisdom to change course without abandoning the destination.
Dr Praveena Rajendra is the author of Mindprint: Engineering Inner Power for Growth, Purpose and Regeneration. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com