[10] Lane described his research as having been organized around seven questions:[11] Lane led a lifetime of self-described "timid" activism: as an adolescent, as a college and graduate student at Harvard University,[12] as a professor at Yale and as a retiree (a colleague likening him to the image of "the Hollywood version of a tireless professor"[4]).
[4][13][14] He organized for the United Rubber Workers Union (for which he was arrested) and joined the third of the Selma to Montgomery marches.
[4][13] He was also a World War II veteran in the Air Force,[4][1][14] and supported ROTC on campus arguing that they would have protected civil rights protesters against violent crowds.
[13] He celebrated the meritocratic shift in admissions under Yale President Kingman Brewster, Jr.[4] He was the founder[17] of the National Senior Conservation Corps (Gray is Green),[18] which promotes and organizes ecofriendly practices at some fifty retirement communities nationwide, involving residents in what he calls "oldternships".
[4][19] His work with Gray is Green has been recognized with a Connecticut Governor's Climate Change Leadership Award in 2008[20] as well as an Encore.org Purpose Prize Fellowship in 2009.